Page 74 - URA Annual Report 2020-21

MANAGEMENT DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS
Opportunities
Adopting a Holistic and Forward Looking Approach
The URA has strived to pursue a holistic approach to optimise the planning benefits from our urban renewal efforts, by shifting from a traditional project-based approach to a more forward looking and district-based planning-led approach.
Two important strategic studies, namely Yau Mong District Study (YMDS) and Study on New Strategy on Building Rehabilitation (NSBR), were envisaged to establish new integrated business directions and executions embracing redevelopment, rehabilitation, preservation, revitalisation and retrofitting. The Preliminary Project Feasibility Studies (PPFSs) introduced in 2018/19 would further help identify the ‘5Rs’ urban renewal projects with replanning and restructuring opportunities.
With a view to promptly responding to market fluctuations or new Government initiatives to support various needs of Hong Kong, the URA has built planning and project reserves so that suitable renewal projects can be timely proposed to make the best use of our financial resources for urban renewal. PPFSs and YMDS have formed the basis of the planning reserve. Based on findings from the ongoing PPFSs in selected action areas and early projects identified from YMDS, ‘Potential Projects’ have been selected as project reserve items for timely inclusion into the URA’s Business Plans/Corporate Plans with due regard to the then URA’s financial position, market situation, availability of resources required for rehousing and Government’s support.
In addition, the new preliminary framework for implementing the Demand-led Pilot Scheme as a result of its effectiveness review is envisioned to create greater planning impact under the planning-led approach. Given the chance to understand owners’ needs through a survey system, the URA will be able to bring bigger planning gains to the community or neighbourhood by incorporating them into the urban renewal project plans.
Leveraging Smart and Innovative Technologies
The URA has strived to embrace the latest technologies to optimise our operation process in order to facilitate urban renewal. The Urban Renewal Information System (URIS) being developed in-house contains a suite of location intelligence tools which enable spatial analytics, data mining and 3D visualisation of the mining results. With over 100 sets of 2D/3D demographic and geographic data, the URIS is envisaged to form the basis of developing digital twin solutions to facilitate data-driven decisions integrating the URA’s ‘5Rs’ strategies. The URA received the Special Achievement in GIS1 (SAG) Award, in recognition of our efforts to set new precedents of applying GIS technology with the development of URIS that standardises and consolidates a wide range of spatial data from various sources for supporting a people-centric and data driven urban renewal approach.
Meanwhile, the URA continues to adopt Building Information Modelling (BIM) in project design and construction as a common platform for communication and collaboration among contractors and consultants in areas of data validation, clash analysis and implication assessments of design change, etc. during project implementation. The use of BIM has been further extended to facility management. The first BIM-Facility Management (BIM- FM) system for 618 Shanghai Street was completed in the fourth quarter of 2019 with an aim to enhance the efficiency of property management of the project. The BIM-FM platform has been further applied to eResidence and the Central Market.
The URA also intends to expand our smart initiatives not only in buildings but also in the wider district area in a bid to pave ways for building a ‘Smart City’. A study on the smart use of underground space and smart provisions of city infrastructural facilities in Kowloon City area was completed in early 2021. Some of the recommendations will be incorporated in the development agreements of Kowloon City projects for implementation.
Promulgating a Culture of Preventive Maintenance
To tackle the problem of a lack of building rehabilitation awareness among owners, the URA has formulated a strategy focusing on the promotion of good practices on preventive maintenance and voluntary maintenance fund through collaborations with various stakeholders, such as professional institutes and practitioners.
1 GIS stands for Geographic Information System 70 URA ANNUAL REPORT 2020-21