Heritage advisers, architects urge government to learn from previous mistakes, engage public in conservation of Hong Kong sites
- Antiquities Advisory Board member Vincent Ho says experts had in 2017 decided ‘non-building structures’ such as a water tank would not be graded for protection
- He says official terminology may have caused misunderstanding due to a broad description used for structures
Heritage advisers and architects in Hong Kong have urged the government to learn from its blunders and engage the public actively after the near-demolition of a century-old underground reservoir caused an uproar.
01:19
Demolition of Hong Kong old reservoir halted after calls for heritage assessment
Last week, Commissioner for Heritage Ivanhoe Chang Chi-ho explained that government-appointed advisers at the AAB had originally decided at a meeting in March 2017 that structures called “water tanks” in general were not worthy of preservation. Subsequently, the Antiquities and Monuments Office (AMO) staff did not object to the demolition of the Bishop Hill reservoir.
But AAB member and surveyor Vincent Ho Kui-yip said there was no record of discussion of the Bishop Hill site, although board members did briefly discuss the fate of another water tank on Hong Kong Island at the said meeting.
Ho recalled that at that meeting, there was a consensus that 31 items, including a water tank near the University of Hong Kong, were “non-building structures” and therefore would not be graded for conservation.