The Urban Renewal Authority (URA)

The URA is the main agent for taking forward the objectives of the URS. The Vision and Mission of the URA are to create quality and vibrant urban living in Hong Kong ± a better home in a world-class city and to act on her priorities with ingenuity and sensitivity, join forces with partners and nurturing her people.

The Government issued a policy statement, Urban Renewal in Hong Kong, in 1996 proposing amongst other things, the setting up of the URA to replace the LDC. In July 2000, the Legislative Council passed the URAO and the URA was set up on 1 May 2001 as the main agent to contain urban decay in Hong Kong. (repetitive)

The URA adopts the 4Rs approach and her priorities are:

- to accelerate Redevelopment by replacing old buildings with new to provide a better living environment and neighbourhood;

- to enable and encourage the Rehabilitation of dilapidated buildings to prevent urban decay;

- to Reserve by maintaining and restoring buildings of historical and architectural value, and to sustain local characteristics;

- to Revitalise through enhancing and strengthening the socio-economic and

environmental fabric for the benefit of our urban communities.      

14 _{The Metroplan is a broad-brush strategic plan first produced in 1991. The intention is to establish a rational} basis to guide development in the Metro area of Hong Kong over the long term.

The purpose of the URA, as summarized from the URAO, which relates to redevelopment are to:

(a) Improve the standard of housing and the built environment of Hong Kong by undertaking, encouraging, promoting and facilitating urban renewal.

(b) Improve the standard of housing and the built environment of Hong Kong and the layout of built-up areas by replacing old and dilapidated areas with new development which is properly planned and, where appropriate, provided with adequate transport and other infrastructure and community facilities;

(c) Achieve better utilization of land in the dilapidated areas of the built environment of Hong Kong and to make land available to meet various development needs;

(d) Engage in such other activities, and to perform such other duties, as the Chief Executive may, after consultation with the Authority, permit or assign to it by order published in the Gazette.

To achieve the objectives in the URS, the authority was given more powers than the LDC. As the first Chairman of the URA stated in his final statement as Chairman:

µThe road to urban renewal has been, and will continue to be, a long and arduous one. Although the work of the LDC did not end without impressive achievements, it has taken us many painful moments to learn our ropes. We have learned that whilst a booming property market and outside funding through partnership with private developers are a potent force of help, we must possess financial independence in order to ride out the cycles of the economy and the property market and the maintain a sustainable urban renewal programme for the long term. We have also learned from bitter lessons that a protracted process of land assembly and site clearance, coupled with the lack of re-housing resources, would definitely put any project in financial jeopardy (URA (2004), p. 21).¶

More powers have been vested in the URA than in the LDC. The main difference between the URA and the LDC models is related to site assembly, re-housing and financial resources.

The land assembly procedure under the URA has been streamlined. The URA will continue to seek acquisition of properties by agreement and negotiate with owners prior to final resort to land resumption by the Government. However, the URA is now empowered under the URAO to apply to the Secretary for Development requesting the Chief Executive in Council to compulsorily purchase the rest of the properties once a threshold of not less than 80% has been acquired. The Government¶s resumption process must be triggered within 12 months after commencement of a project. This is very different from the LDC, its predecessor, which needed to go through a protracted acquisition process having to take all reasonable steps to acquire affected properties in the project area. This resulted in never-ending rounds of negotiations between the LDC and the property owners and only after then, a request could be made to the then Secretary of the Planning, Environment and Lands to recommend to the Chief Executive in Council the resumption of those properties that the LDC had failed to acquire.

As with the LDC, the URA will either dispose of the site to private developers for redevelopment after site assembly, enter into a joint venture partnership with developers or embark on redevelopment on its own.

It is expected that it will take the URA about 3.5 years to get through the planning procedures, land resumption process and clearance of the site. It is expected that the land assembly alone will be completed within a time span of 24 months. Adding the detailed planning and construction stages, the URA aims to complete a redevelopment project within 6 or 6.5 years. The timescale is lengthy largely because of the need for the URA to assemble properties and not just compensate the owners but re-house the tenants as well. The planning procedures are rather different from those that apply to the private sector but involve similar publication and public comments requirements. Appendix V outlines the planning procedures stipulated in the URAO. This may be compared to that indicated in