Vanishing tong lau: Hong Kong heritage experts call for action, incentives to save last pre-war shophouses
- Old shophouse buildings in danger of demolition as rules for preservation are too restrictive, experts say
- Few owners apply to repair, upgrade buildings because it costs too much, government grant is not enough
Businesswoman Vanessa Ho never set out to be a conservationist, but now she is pleased that she bought an old shophouse and saved a slice of Hong Kong’s history.
The four-storey building at 1 Queen’s Road West in Sheung Wan was built in around 1930, before World War II, and was owned since the 1950s by a family who ran a restaurant selling roasted meat on the ground floor and lived upstairs.
The restaurant’s sign was still up and advertising slogans in fonts popular in the last century were painted on its wall and terrazzo pillars, when Ho, 50, bought it in 2016.
That was six years after the building received a grade-three historic rating in 2010, the lowest of a three-tier scale where no protection was guaranteed and the owners could demolish it if they wished.
“You can’t really look at a heritage building solely from the investment perspective,” she said. “To me, I feel I have preserved a piece of Hong Kong’s history and heritage, and I’m quite proud of that.”
It now has a vegetable store on the ground floor selling local farm products, while the upper floors are rented as office space.
With no plans to demolish or sell it, Ho said: “It is something that all people in Hong Kong can enjoy, especially those from the neighbourhood, and visitors too.”
Hong Kong conservationists want the government to do more to save the city’s last remaining tong lau, narrow pre-war buildings with European-style architectural features.
Once a common sight, most have been demolished over the decades to make way for redevelopment.
In 2009, the Antiquities and Monuments Office identified 87 pre-war shophouses among 1,444 buildings with heritage value, but only the Lui Seng Chun tong lau in Sham Shui Po was declared a monument, protecting it from demolition.
Two shophouses at Hennessy Road in Wan Chai, including the landmark Tung Tak Pawn Shop which had a grade-three historic rating, were demolished.
A tong lau at Apliu Street, in Sham Shui Po, was being considered for a higher grade two status when the owners altered the building so substantially in 2012 that the heritage assessment was halted.
About half of the rest have been preserved by the government and Urban Renewal Authority in the past 20 years, the latest project being a set of 10 tong lau in Shanghai Street, Mong Kok, in 2019.
The fate of more than three dozen others remain in the hands of private owners, with some in a state of disrepair and said to be up for sale.
“Private owners who want to renovate their properties must comply with building regulations, including installing accessible channels, lifts and emergency stairs. Given the small area of tong lau, it is easiest to demolish and rebuild,” said Wendy Ng Wan-yee, a council member of the Institute of Architectural Conservationists.
She said the demolition of many pre-war shophouses in Hong Kong’s older districts over the last two decades were a loss.
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“Tong lau are closely connected with residents as many lived there in the past, and they reflect the crowded living spaces back then,” she said, referring to days when several low-income families shared a 700 sq ft flat.
She said it cost a lot to preserve these old buildings. Although the government offered a grant capped at HK$2 million (HK$255,000), she said that might only cover roof repairs, and owners had to apply a few times for approval to repair their property.
As the scheme only covered historically graded structures and owners had to make them accessible to the public, a number of tong lau built as homes did not qualify.
There have been only around 10 approved applications for the grants each year over the past three years, mainly for buildings on larger sites, such as ancestral halls.
Ng said the government could allow more flexibility to encourage preservation of the remaining shophouses.
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The Urban Studies Institute, a local urban research group, identified about 170 pre-war tong lau on Hong Kong Island and in Kowloon last year and more than two-fifths had no historic grading.
In Sham Shui Po, one was demolished to make way for a private residential project last year, another was up for auction this year, and a proposal to demolish a third, a grade-two shophouse, had been approved.
At least 12 others had potential development plans.
Lee Ho-yin, a retired associate professor from the University of Hong Kong’s architectural conservation programme, said the government had a vital role in preserving the remaining old shophouses.
“The city’s relatively successful pre-war tong lau preservation projects are led by the government and operated by financially stable non-profit organisations,” he said.
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The Blue House Cluster of tong lau built in the 1920s was revitalised as co-living space in 2016, and the Lui Seng Chun building has been Baptist University’s Chinese medicine centre since 2012.
“The biggest value of pre-war tong lau is their social value,” Lee said. “Preservation has to strengthen the relationship between tong lau and the community, or else the next generation will not treasure them.”
He suggested that the government subsidise the Urban Renewal Authority to preserve historic buildings under its redevelopment projects, giving affected flat owners better compensation.
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The Antiquities and Monuments Office told the Post that about 90 pre-war shophouses had been historically graded and around 10 more would be graded “in due course”.
It said the government would monitor any plan to demolish or alter historic buildings, and reach out to owners to explore conservation options.
It added that appropriate incentives would be given, depending on the heritage value of the building and the conservation proposal.
Doing his part for conservation, restaurant owner Sam Ma Hung-choi, 47, turned an 80-year-old former hardware shop in Kowloon City into a cafe.
He went to school near Kowloon City, so spent a lot of his teenage years in the area and developed deep ties with the community.
When he saw the vacant old hardware shop, he decided to open a cafe and help preserve the neighbourhood
He rented the ground floor of the two-storey building and spent HK$2 million to retain as much of its features as it was transformed into a cafe.
“Although the building may be taken over or demolished in future, we want to do as much as we can with the time we have,” he said.
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Businesswoman Ho, owner of the tong lau in Sheung Wan, said she hoped to encourage more private companies to get involved.
“The private sector is absent in heritage conservation,” she said.
She set up a foundation this year and hoped to raise HK$100 million initially from like-minded entrepreneurs and institutional financing to buy individual units in old buildings worth saving and fix them.
This way, they could preserve old neighbourhoods, rent out homes at affordable prices and introduce community activities to draw residents together.
“I believe there are companies that care for the city and its history and if they can, they care to preserve the Hong Kong story,” she said.
