19 August 2007

Summer wouldn't be summer without a summer storm - and we've watched a fierce and protracted one this year in the controversy over the relocation of Queen's Pier.

Like all summer storms, it was noisy, dramatic, unexpected and in many respects irrational. It generated heated tempers and exaggerated emotion. The issue of the pier was at times hi-jacked by radical elements intent on fermenting unrest for a broader political agenda.

At the same time, however, it was a debate that cast light on an important issue for our city as it strives to continually modernize and develop versus the importance of heritage conservation and the need for more debate on how we should preserve Hong Kong's treasured history.

For three long, hot months, protestors camped at the pier to try to stop its demolition. In early August, police executed a swift and efficient eviction. A week later the clouds of uncertainty were finally cleared by the High Court when it rejected an application for a judicial review. It was an important decision, one that we in the Liberal Party fully support.

Although, like the majority of Hong Kong people, we understand the concerns of the protestors at Queen's Pier, but taking Hong Kong's overall interests into account, we support the relocation of Queen's Pier to make way for the improved Central road system.

Furthermore, there was extensive public consultation over this work between 1999 and 2002 and no significant opposition views to the demolition of either the Star Ferry Pier or the Queen's Pier emerged. In fact, the Legislative Council's Finance Committee passed funding for the project on June 21, 2002, with unanimous support from all Legislators. Also, even at the very height of the recent Queen's Pier protest, a survey by the Hong Kong Youth Association found that 59 per cent of people supported the government action.

Heritage conservation must be balanced with the need for economic development and our need for better infrastructure - and the High Court has ruled that the government accurately considered heritage factors before going ahead with moving the Queen's Pier project, that will make way for a new trunk road that will ease much of Central's traffic congestion problems that is costing us dearly.

Also, reversing the decision to demolish Queen's Pier would have incurred a massive economic cost in terms of delaying those works and reneging on contracts already awarded for the reclamation work, incurring huge compensation payouts at taxpayers' expense.

With the battle for Queen's Pier lost, however, activists are looking for a new lost cause to champion, and they have chosen Wan Chai Market. Once again, extensive consultations have been conducted over the redevelopment of the market into a residential block with Wan Chai District Council between 1995 and 2002 on reprovisioning the market and the new Master Layout Plan. Wan Chai District Council raised no objections in either context after consulting the public.

In June 2003, the land grant of the project based on the approved Master Layout Plan was executed by the Land Development Corporation. After years of silence and apparent indifference on the issue, activists suddenly would like to have those past consultations declared void, the contracts declared invalid and the redevelopment halted in its tracks. Is this fair and just? Where were the activists when the public was first consulted over Queen's Pier in 2002? What did they have to say when the future of Wan Chai Market was being debated in 2003?

That is why I think it is right that the Queen's Pier relocation should go ahead and the Wan Chai Market redevelopment should proceed as planned. However, there is no doubt that there are valuable lessons to be learned from the summer storm over heritage conservation - lessons that the government cannot afford to ignore if it is to avoid future controversies.

Even though the activists may not be representative of Hong Kong people as a whole, it is unquestionable that public consciousness about the importance of heritage conservation has recently been raised to a new level. I feel the government must respond to that new level of public consciousness.

The Liberal Party believes that, in cases where public consultations were carried out some years earlier, the government must update its consultation. It cannot and should not assume there has been no shift in public opinion in the meantime. As the Star Ferry Pier and Queen's Pier incidents have illustrated, public opinion can shift sharply in a few years.

If major projects are left open to legal challenge in the way that we have seen with the Queen's Pier, government land auctions, and the Wan Chai Market developments, whilst our government steps aside as an on-looker and do nothing, I am afraid that local and international investors' confidence on contract rights and obligations in Hong Kong will be badly dented.

The Liberal Party feels that government should be more pro-active in reaching an updated agreement with the heritage conservation groups and then in turn compensate property developers either by cash or equivalent gross floor areas in the project.

Heritage conservation is important to Hong Kong. But so too is our city's efficient development to keep pace with our economic growth. So too is our ability to honour contracts. So too is our image as an international city.

The best way to react to the summer storm whipped up by the Queen's Pier is to create a more current, update and sensitive way of consulting our community over land auctions and public works in future. If we do so, the outcome will be a victory for the government, a victory for those among the Queen's Pier protestors whose true aim was heritage conservation, and a victory for Hong Kong's commitment to development and contractual agreements.