Page 76 - URA Annual Report 2021-22

CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY
Co-building Neighbourhood through In-depth Collaboration with Community Members
To enliven the building clusters in the Staunton Street/Wing Lee Street Neighbourhood (H19) with a focus on sustainable community development, the URA has established shared visions on community development with residents and stakeholders through a Community Making Study alongside a series of engagement exercises, for all stakeholders to work on towards co-creating a vibrant neighbourhood with local characteristics. Volunteers from elderly centres and the neighbourhood joined hands with
URA staff to manage the Community Farms and organise the ‘Go Green’ campaign in July 2021 to revitalise the environment with plants and decorations.
Handicraft workshops are organised for community members to decorate the neighbourhood with colourful plant pots.
Assisting Households in Ageing Districts to Relocate for the Better
Redevelopment not just concerns replacing rundown buildings with new stock. It is meant to improve the living standards of displaced households and the built environment. The offers by the URA, including ex-gratia payments under the seven-year rule (market value of a notional seven-year-old flat in the same locality), allow affected domestic owner-occupiers to purchase replacement premises that are in better condition than their existing ones. Over the past year as of 30 June 2022, acquisition offers were made to the owners of 891 property interests in the Shing Tak Street/Ma Tau Chung Road Project (CBS:1-KC), the Shantung Street/Thistle Street Project (YTM-012) and the To Kwa Wan Road/Wing Kwong Street Project (KC-016), who had been living under some very poor conditions in dilapidated buildings. In addition, through the Urban Redevelopment Facilitating Services Company Limited, the URA assisted the ground floor shop operators to locate replacement shops to continue their businesses. An Ombudsman Award was granted to one of the staff members for the caring service rendered.
The URA also places emphasis on enabling residents to retain their social network in the neighbourhood. Since the introduction of the Flat-for-Flat (FFF) Scheme in 2011, the FFF scheme has been offered to a total of 28 redevelopment projects4. Domestic owner-occupiers in these projects had the option to purchase in-situ FFF units in the respective redevelopment sites, FFF units in selected nearby URA development projects or FFF units in the completed Kai Tak Development. Up to June 2022, a total of 48 owners took up the FFF offers, comprising 41 units in the Kai Tak Development and seven in-situ units.
4 Nine of the projects were under the Demand-led Pilot Scheme.
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