Page 83 - URA Annual Report 2021-22

Meanwhile, rehabilitation, as one of the two URA’s core businesses, is a cornerstone to tackle the problem of urban decay. To tackle the problem of a lack of building rehabilitation awareness among owners, we embarked on the Study on New Strategy on Building Rehabilitation (NSBR) to understand the views of owners of old buildings and the difficulties they encountered in building maintenance, so as to explore measures that could better motivate them to carry out rehabilitation work on their own. Results of the study showed that owners of old buildings usually faced three main challenges that hindered their willingness to organise repair and maintenance works on their own, and we have pressed on with our rehabilitation efforts to assist building owners to overcome these hurdles through proactive and targeted measures.
Striking Balance between Urban Renewal and Additional Government Initiatives
A number of Government initiatives have been entrusted to the URA in recent years, including the active provision of Starter Homes (SH) in our redevelopment projects, and assisting NGOs to develop transitional housing and redevelop community facilities on their sites. Inevitably, implementing these initiatives for the Government would compromise the deployment of resources for urban renewal work. In the face of our resources constraints, it is therefore important for the URA to strike a balance between the sustainable development of our core businesses in urban renewal and delivering Government initiatives. Continuous support from the Government, in the form of both policy and resources, would be required so as to enable the URA to optimise its resources to achieve both objectives.
Opportunities
Expediting the Pace of Urban Renewal Work Through Implementing New Strategic Studies and Data Analysis
In view of the challenges faced by the accelerating pace of urban decay, this necessitates us to formulate and implement a more holistic and forward looking approach to urban regeneration, and to expedite urban renewal work through the implementation of new strategic studies and data analysis.
In the Yau Mong District Study (YMDS), potential projects are being formulated based on the Master Urban Renewal Concept Plan and the use of new planning tools. Drawing on the conceptual proposals in the YMDS, the URA supported Planning Department in initiating a batch of amendments to the relevant Outline Zoning Plan within Mong Kok district to implement the proposed recommendations and new planning tools of the YMDS. These amendments included relaxing the plot ratio for the commercial spine along Nathan Road and allowing the interchangeability of domestic and non-domestic plot ratio to increase the flexibility to cater for market changes.
The greenlight given to these amendments bodes well for the application of new planning tools in other old districts in Hong Kong. In addition, Planning Department is expected to announce details of other planning tools, including the proposed locations and implementation mechanisms for the street consolidation areas, by the end of this year.
Looking forward, we will take the lead in adopting new planning tools in our projects which we see as appropriate, so that we can share the experience with private market as a reference. Meanwhile, we will work with the Government to expedite the formulation of implementation mechanisms for the new planning tools, in order to provide the private developers with clear guidelines and specifications to follow. Ultimately, we hope to unleash redevelopment potential to maximise the use of urban land resources in old districts, and to motivate more private market participation, thereby speeding up the pace of urban renewal work.
URA ANNUAL REPORT 2021-22 77
Management Discussion and Analysis Projects at a Glance Corporate Governance