S

U R V E Y I N G A D B L T O M ISSN 1816-9554

Vol. 28 Issue 1 June 2019 Vol. 28 Issue 1 June 2019

Information

All rights reserved. No part of this Journal may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the permission of the Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors. Contents of the Journal do not necessarily reflect the views or opinion of the Institute and no liability is accepted in relation thereto.

Copyright © 2019 The Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors ISSN 1816-9554

總辦事處 Head Office 香港上環干諾道中111號永安中心12樓1205室 Room 1205, 12/F Wing On Centre, 111 Connaught Road Central, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong Telephone 電話: 2526 3679 Fax 傳真: 2868 4612 E-mail 電郵: [email protected] Website 網址: www.hkis.org.hk

北京辦事處 Beijing Office 中國北京市海淀區高樑橋斜街59號院1號樓 中坤大廈6層616室 (郵編：100044) Room 616, 6/F, Zhongkun Plaza, No.59 Gaoliangqiaoxiejie, No.1 Yard, Haidian District, Beijing, China, 100044 Telephone 電話: 86 (10) 8219 1069 Fax 傳真: 86 (10) 8219 1050 E-mail 電郵: [email protected] Website 網址: www.hkis.org.hk Editorial Board

■■Honorary Editor Emeritus Professor Andrew Y.T. Leung Sr Alexander Lam Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering The Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors City University of Hong Kong Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China

■■Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Sr Professor S.M. Lo Sr Professor K.W. Chau Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering Department of Real Estate and Construction City University of Hong Kong The University of Hong Kong Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China Sr Professor Esmond C.M. Mok ■■Editor Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics Sr Professor Lawrence W.C. Lai The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Department of Real Estate and Construction Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China The University of Hong Kong Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China Professor Graeme Newell School of Business ■■Editorial Assistants University of Western Sydney Dr Mark Hansley Chua Australia Department of Real Estate and Construction The University of Hong Kong Professor L.Y. Shen Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China School of Construction Management and Real Estate The Chongqing University Mr Nixon T.H. Leung People’s Republic of China Department of Real Estate and Construction The University of Hong Kong Sr Dr. Conrad H.W. Tang Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics The Hong Kong Polytechnic University ■■Members Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China Sr Dr. M.W. Chan Professor Chris Webster Department of Building and Real Estate Department of Urban Planning and Design The Hong Kong Polytechnic University The University of Hong Kong Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China Sr Professor S.O. Cheung Professor Cecilia Y.L. Wong Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering School of Environment, Education and Development City University of Hong Kong The University of Manchester Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China The United Kingdom Dr. Cecilia Chu Dr. Simon Y. Yau Department of Urban Planning and Design Department of Public Policy The University of Hong Kong City University of Hong Kong Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China Sr Professor Daniel C.W. Ho Faculty of Design and Environment ■■English editing Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong Kong Dr. Peter Herbert Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China

Dr. John P. Lea Faculty of Architecture, Design & Planning The University of Sydney Australia Contents

Editorial Policy & Research papers Cape D’Aguilar: an Example of Multilayered Heritage 8-28 By Stephen N.G. Davies Evolution of Urban Renewal Institution in the Asian Context: 29-53 A Comparison between Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei By Chun Liang Lin and Edwin H.W. Chan Encountering Dr. Edward G. Pryor 54-60 By Lawrence W.C. Lai Field Trip Notes Post-war Hong Kong Border Security Sites: Wang Lek 61-72 By Y.K. Tan Post-war Hong Kong Border Security Sites: Pak Kung Au By Y.K. Tan Post-war Hong Kong Border Security Sites: Robin’s Nest (Hung Fa Leng) By Y.K. Tan Editorial

Trees on a barren rock Lawrence WC Lai

That Hong Kong appeared more or in tree planting have contributed to an less a barren rock by the early 19th increase in trees in Hong Kong. Century was a matter of property rights rather than a natural state of affairs. From May-June 2006, a Hong Kong Open access and economic demand University team excavated a buried in the nearby regions and agriculture gun emplacement at the disused resulted in the decimation of a sub- Pottinger Battery on Devil’s Peak. This tropical forestry cover on its slopes and archaeological process removed the flatlands. bushes inside and around the battery. Within just one year, the place was Otherwise, it would be futile to plant overrun once more by new trees and trees in Hong Kong. Since 1842, the thick bushes. local administration has diligently planted trees and the results were only It is very safe to say that it is easy for reversed for a while during the Japanese trees to grow in Hong Kong due to its occupation when the authorities and climatic, geographical, and economic people chopped down trees for power conditions. generation and cooking. However, not a few people now treat Trees grow easily in Hong Kong and the felling of a tree as a major evil. The their biomass on government and even love of trees often adds enormous cost private holdings has definitely and to, and even frustrates, much-needed tremendously increased despite rapid development. urbanisation and population growth since 1945. Many do not realize that unless they are under constant and careful management, A careful comparative analysis of trees that grow close to a building do government aerial photos taken by RC not only obstruct its view and the view Huntings in 1963 and 1964 and those of its occupants, but also undermine the taken recently would testify to this building’s structural conditions due to point of view. A shift in the type of root action. energy supply for domestic purposes from firewood to fossil fuels, the The integrity of the structures of many abandonment of grazing and cultivation, graded military relics cherished by global warming, and government efforts many, for instance, have already been

SBE 5 subject to the bad effects of trees, which are far too shallow for tall trees to would not have been there if those withstand a major typhoon. Then what structures were still in active service. is really to blame?

No sensible heritage preservation There is a strong reason why the enthusiast would have allowed trees government wants to limit the size and to grow around the apron of a former depth of a tree planter. It must refuse gun emplacement. Those trees that to allow any big tree to grow along a have grown inside and around the pedestrian path or median strip. This gun emplacements of the Gough and is for traffic safety reasons, especially Pottinger Batteries and Mount Davis as they now seem to have been planted Fort are cases in point. very close to each other. In Downtown Melbourne, trees were planted and Against this background, some argued spaced about three-car lengths from that the large number of trees that one another, but in Hong Kong they collapsed during the last typhoon are sometimes planted just half a car in 2018 was the result of a poor apart! For proof, go see those young government tree-planting approach in trees planted near the pedestrian bridge Hong Kong’s urban and rural areas. outside the Chai Wan campus of THEi.

Let us reflect on the point that most of The trees were NOT supposed to have the trees that collapsed exhibited very grown so big in the city center in the short roots. This is a valid observation. first place. The valid criticism of this practice is not about soil depth, but a The problem is that this fact somehow reluctance to trim and limit plant size. became entangled with the comment Trees should not be allowed to grow that tree planters along roads are “too indiscriminately, if at all, along narrow small and shallow”. roads in a vertical urban environment. To plant a tree in an urban area, as if it Before proceeding, there is a need were a country park, and say it “cannot to point out that it is not just the be touched” is a big mistake. To expect trees grown in concrete planters and a tall tree that grows in shallow soil, collapsed that had short roots; many whether in an urban or rural area, to more that fell down in the country withstand a strong typhoon defies parks (say in the Aberdeen Reservoir science. catchment areas) and greenbelts also had short roots, too. Same goes for For those of us who have lived in the big trees that were found to have Hong Kong over the last 50 years, collapsed around Pottinger Battery. big branching trees along roads have always been considered dangerous Therefore, the correct inference is that objects; trees located near homes were both natural and artificial soil depths also hazardous. Remember that the SBE 6 tree branch which fell on the head of a young passenger on a double decker bus on Nathan Road and killed him?

For the sake of public safety and conservation of heritage buildings, arboreal experts should be employed to prune trees so that they remain attractive and sustainable “bonsai” or potted flora.

If not, the alternative is to not replant more trees but to axe those that are already oversized!

4 April 2019

SBE 7 Cape D’Aguilar: an Example of Multilayered Heritage

Stephen Davies*

ABSTRACT

Heritage structures are too often looked at in temporal isolation, not as part of an environmental complex, whether streetscape or landscape, the elements of which change through time in mutually connected ways. In the jargon, too little attention tends to be given to how a space becomes a place and how the place gets irregularly redefined. This essay considers Hong Kong’s Cape D’Aguilar as a worked example.

KEYWORDS

Lighthouse, radio station, signal station, gun battery, map, chart, toponym

INTRODUCTION

Cape D’Aguilar – the English name – was given its present English name by Lt Thomas Bernard Collinson RE after his senior officer, Major-General George Charles D’Aguilar (Norton-Kyshe 1898).1 Collinson was the British military engineer who made the first modern topographical survey of Hong Kong Island in 1844-45, creating the pioneering first map of Hong Kong with its early use of hill contours (Davies 2012). In the process Collinson pushed a track right down to the end of the Cape D’Aguilar peninsula in order to erect two trigonometrical survey

* Department of Real Estate and Construction, Faculty of Architecture, University of Hong Kong 1 D’Aguilar is noted as effective but inclined to eccentricity. SBE 8 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 8-28 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554 stations. What he mapped beyond Head3) dominates two historically the last settlement was depicted as an important waterways. To the east it otherwise completely empty space. looks over the entrance to the Tathong It was indeed empty space to the Channel (Tat Hong Mun, 大東門4), British colonizers, though almost which leads to the eastern entrance certainly not to the indigenes as a to Victoria Harbour5 at Lei Yue Mun look at its toponymy will indicate. (鯉魚門). To the south it looks over But to both groups the area was Sheung Sze Mun (雙四門),6 which is important and what we are going to the inshore route from the waters east of look at is how that importance – socio- Hong Kong towards the main channels economic, topographic, hydrographic, of the Pearl River. communicative, military and academic – turned it into the place that we study Quite what Cape D’Aguilar’s Chinese today as a complex, multi-layered name may actually have been we don’t example of Hong Kong’s built heritage. really know. The Hakka founders of the small hamlet nearby, whom local lore says had moved from near Ngau A FOUNDATIONAL PLACE: Tau Kok at some point in the later 18th TOPONYMY OLD AND NEW century, are recorded by Collinson as

At the south eastern tip of Hong Kong 3 or maybe 岬. The Romanization is also Island (originally, possibly, Hung sometimes Tai Long Head. 2 Heung Lo, 紅香爐), Cape D’Aguilar 4 Also Nam Tong Hoi Hap (藍塘海峽, (originally appearing on western charts originally 南堂海峽) - respectively ‘Blue 大浪角 Pool Channel’ and, rather puzzlingly, ‘South as Tylong Head ( – Big Wave Hall Channel’ – perhaps we are to understand ‘entrance hall’. 5 The usage is Collinson’s (1845) so was an 2 紅香爐峰 (Hung Heung Lo Fung) is today the early one. On marine charts and officially the local toponym for what in English is Braemar British initially called this Hong Kong Road (properly Bremer) Hill (寶馬山). Quite what or Roads or The Harbour (1844), then the Hong Kong Island was called before the Qing Harbour of Hong Kong (1845), which became Dynasty is more or less anyone’s guess (Tam ‘the Harbour of Victoria, Hong Kong’ in 1862. Kwong-lim at https://www.mardep.gov.hk/ Meanwhile the bay off Wanchai was identified theme/port_hk/en/p1ch1_2.html - accessed as ‘Victoria Bay’. Victoria Harbour (維多利 16.3.2019). The probabilities that it was Hong 亞港) never seems to have been an official Kong (香港) are slight with other candidates toponym. The Hong Kong Hydrographic of varying plausibility being Red River (紅 Office today uses Hong Kong, China, the 江), Sweet (Freshwater) River (香江) and Harbour. The author once, now untraceably, Fragrant Aunt (the Pirate) (香姑). The first came across a claim that the original local two are reasonable names for the actual place, Chinese name was Duk Kwan Gong (獨龜港 today Aberdeen, which seems likely to have – Solitary Turtle Harbour). been called something that sounded like Hong 6 Initially Romanized variously as Sing-si- Kong in one of the area’s many dialects and mun Pass, Sing-Shee-Moon, Shing Sze Mun, that had four permanent streams flowing sometimes Shing Chu Mun - the waterway into it at Waterfall Bay, Tin Wan, Aberdeen has never been given an English name. See, Reservoirs Valley and Wong Chuk Hang for example, Ross and Maughan (1810), Valley. Horsburgh (1827, p.321) SBE 9 Cape D’Aguilar: an Example of Multilayered Heritage

calling their home “Hoktsuewan,” in beak’. This seems unduly poetical, today’s Romanization, “Hoktsuiwan.” as well as dependent on seeing the The first two phonemes are today peninsula in a bird’s-eye view from rendered in characters as 鶴咀, or the air, as in a representationally “Crane’s Mouth (Beak)”. But quite accurate western-style map – a manner how what Collinson represents as ‘wan’ quite at odds with traditional Chinese should be written is moot. Today the cartography, even supposing any local official designation of the village is Hok villager had ever seen any sort of map. Tsui Tsuen (鶴咀村). It is possible that the ‘wan’ is 灣 or bay, as in Chaiwan or The name of the two small islands that Shaukeiwan, though given the village is terminate the peninsula are a sound perched 125m up on top of a cliff, that guide to what we might call ‘normal’ is eccentric. Modern toponymy gives toponyms in non-literate, subsistence the name Hok Tsui Wan (鶴咀灣) to the agricultural and fishing communities. small, sheltered bay tucked just west of They are called Kau Pei Chau (狗髀洲, the headland where the University of i.e., dog buttocks island), which can Hong Kong’s Swire Institute of Marine reasonably, if crudely, be translated as Sciences now stands. Dog’s Bum Islets. In this the islets are typical of such local toponyms all over The origin of the local toponym the world where simple designators like is obscure. Here, as with so many ‘Home Rock’, ‘West Point’, ‘Cooking Hong Kong toponyms, the illiteracy Pot Hill’, etc. are the norm. Indeed, we of the overwhelming percentage of can see exactly that sort of simplicity the indigenous population and the in the first recorded western name for mediation of the recording of names Cape D’Aguilar. through western topographic and hydrographic surveyors in the 19th Before Lt Collinson used his boss’s century, with a focus on what these name in 1844, in 1841 the Royal Navy should be in Chinese characters only had already decided on a different emerging in the late 20th century, makes one that, presumably, they had heard discovering the correct indigenous from their embarked local pilot: names probably impossible. With Hok Tylong Head (Big Wave Head). That Tsui, if the Chinese characters have name, seemingly first recorded by 8 more than merely a phonetic value Commander Edward Belcher RN, who (Barnett 1974, pp.136-159),7 then the conducted the first systematic large- peninsula was seen as like a ‘crane’s 8 Curiously, although he gives directions for passing through Shing Sze Mun from the 7 This is sometimes the case with Hong Kong’s very first edition of the second volume of his coastal toponyms, which often echo older monumental India Directory in 1817 until the names of the non-Han, Austronesian and 6th edition in 1852, James Horsburgh (1827) minority peoples, who were the original never gives a name for the “south-east point of inhabitants of China’s south coast. Hong Kong Island.” SBE 10 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 8-28 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554 scale hydrographic survey of Hong Kong’s water based Hoklo minority.11 Kong waters in 1841 in HMS Sulphur, For the same sub-group in Hakka was used by the world’s nautical chart (客語), the language of the villagers makers for the next 150 years (King & Thomas Bernard Collinson will have Master 1861, p.34).9 met, we have Fok-ló (福佬), “Fujian folk”, at least possibly explaining It is thus at least possible that the the first phoneme of a misunderstood elegantly poetic “Hok Tsui” (鶴咀) toponym. Perhaps the villagers actually is what a literate Chinese scribe in called their settlement something the employment of the Royal Navy else but noted to Lt Collinson, who produced when a non-Sinophone, leave misunderstood, that down where he was alone Cantonese, Hakka or Hoklo headed was a bay and waters where speaking westerner relayed to him Hoklo fisherfolk fished and sometimes what he thought he had heard local hauled ashore. people call the place where they lived. Equally, on the evidence of Collinson’s That muddles occur as a place shifts notebook that his scribe was fluent only from its unwritten early history into in Fujianese (Fujianese) and Mandarin, the glare of the literate modern world even an embarked, literate pilot might is perhaps most patently revealed by have had difficulty in fully grasping the waterway today called Sheung how to write what he thought he was Sze Mun (雙四門). Transliterated this hearing his interlocutors say (Collinson gives us Double Four Channel/Passage/ 1844).10 Pass. As it happens the general course in a westerly direction through this It is possible, accordingly, that the deep but narrow channel is, using the headland area or the village may have modern 360º notation, 240º(T).12 So is gained its toponym from a small fishing ‘Double Four’ some sort of abbreviated settlement in the sheltered bay where Cantonese rendering of the western the Swire Institute of Marine Sciences course spoken ‘Two Four Oh/Zero”? now stands. “Crane folk”, 鶴佬 The probability is that it is not. For what (Hoklo), is one of the names of Hong someone will likely have heard back in the day will have been the traditional Chinese ‘needle path’ (zhēnlù, 針路) 9 It got firmly entrenched with the publication using Chinese compass headings – in of the 3rd edition of the British Hydrographic fact the hours of the day. The traditional Office’s China Pilot (King and Master 1861, heading equivalent to the western 240º p.34) 10 We know from the notebooks of Lt T.B. Collinson RE’s brother, Captain Richard Collinson RN, as well as other, similar sources, 11 河老 – Ho Lo or 學老 - Hok Lo. that Royal Navy surveying vessels carried 12 (T) betokens a true rather than magnetic (M) literate Chinese assistants. The assistant in or compass (C) – the last a course corrected Richard Collinson’s case seems only to have for magnetic variation and ship’s compass spoken Fujianese and Mandarin fluently. deviation. SBE 11 Cape D’Aguilar: an Example of Multilayered Heritage

was, in Mandarin, shēnshí (申時), and to become a developed place in colonial those characters, in Fujianese/Hokkien, Hong Kong’s modern story. By the would sound like ‘Sing Si’, which 1860s the increasing maritime traffic suggests that somehow a misleading of the young port faced a problem. If Romanization of something heard from a ship arrived at night, Hong Kong’s a Hokkien speaking informant has led to tricky, rock strewn entrances meant that the strangely hybrid modern Cantonese the only safe recourse was to do what variant.13 Perhaps the waterway should was called ‘lie off’ or ‘lie to’ overnight properly be Romanized in Cantonese as and wait until daytime to find the way San Si Mun (申時門). into harbour (Government of Hong Kong 1873 para 8). All we can say, therefore, is that the toponymy of the area we now call The last half of the 19th century was variously Cape D’Aguilar or Hok Tsui the great age of lighthouse building on (鶴咀) is, like much of Hong Kong’s China’s coast and around the world. indigenous toponymy, of uncertain Lighthouses (or simply “lights”) mark provenance and accuracy but as such things like entrances to harbours, is reflective of aspects of the area’s dangers ships must avoid and important history. As we can see, therefore, even turning points on major shipping routes. that uncertainty is itself a tentative route Hong Kong needed its own lights to into the early history of how an isolated help the mariners at night find their way indigenous coastal place on the south to safety. eastern tip of Hong Kong Island began to become the multi-layered place it is The initial review of this problem by today. John Reed, Master RN of the survey ship HMS Rifleman, which had been commissioned in 1867, was reported BECOMING A MODERN by the Harbour Master in 1887 to have HONG KONG PLACE 1: A recommended that lights be built on LIGHTHOUSE Waglan Island (橫瀾島), on Gap Rock (蚊尾洲) and on Green Island (青洲). Thirty years after Lt T.B. Collinson’s That way the southern approaches from map making, the Cape’s important Singapore and the south west would position led to the seeming space he be covered by Gap Rock, with Green had visited for surveying purposes start Island to direct vessels towards the western entrance to Victoria Harbour. 13 In the first truly modern chart of Hong Kong Equally, Waglan Island would cover the waters, Ross and Maughan (1810) and as with most of the charts of the south coast of approach from the east and southeast China Ross and Maughan surveyed, someone leading ships to the entrance to Tathong has attempted to give Chinese characters for Channel, whence to the eastern toponyms recorded only in Romanized form with often hilarious results. Sheung Sze or San entrance to the harbour at Lei Yue Mun Si Mun is given as 生思門, which is gibberish. (鯉魚門). SBE 12 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 8-28 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554

The problem was that the British also resulted in a change in name. only occupied the small area of Hong What had been Cape D’Aguilar light, Kong Island. Negotiations with the reduced to a simple tower, gained the Qing authorities for lease conditions new Romanized, but today forgotten to build and operate lights on Gap name of “Song Siu” or “Song Chu Rock and Waglan Island went nowhere Tower”. The Chinese characters for this (Government of Hong Kong 1887 are unknown,17 but the name may have para 8). Accordingly by the early been taken from a submerged rock close 1870s it had become clear that the only under the cliffs east of the lighthouse, place the British colonial authorities which appeared on the 1901 British could build lighthouses was on territory Hydrographic Office chart as “Song indisputably British controlled. Hong Siu”, though on one later chart this Kong’s first lighthouse was therefore lit became “Song Sui”. The Romanized on Cape D’Aguilar on 16th April 1875, toponym for the rock lasted through marking the very important eastern until the 1970s when it disappeared. entrance to Victoria Harbour. 14 It can no longer be found anywhere in lists of modern Hong Kong toponymy.18 The tower of the lighthouse still stands today – it was declared a monument In 1975 Song Siu Tower was equipped in 200515. – though the interior and with a small, modern light, dwarfed by the light on top are greatly changed the tower it sits on but giving the tower from how it originally was, especially back its old name, Cape D’Aguilar when it lost its characteristic lighthouse (light). An even bigger change also lantern in 1905 (this can still be seen took place at around that time to its on Green Island’s lighthouse, to where surroundings. Sometime between it was moved).16 The change in status 1975 and the mid-1980s the original when the structure ceased being a light quarters for the lighthouse keeper and

14 Hong Kong Government Gazette, 12th March 17 1875, Notice No. 46: Notice to Mariners Yet another Hong Kong toponym the original and Hong Kong Government Gazette, 25th of which has been impenetrably masked by its September 1875, p.409, Notice to Mariners transmission only through Romanization. 18 No.70. Although, bizarrely, not long after Song Siu 15 https://www.amo.gov.hk/en/monuments_80. disappeared, in 1975 the small northward php accessed 16.2.2019. finger of land just north of Bokhara Battery 16 The extinguishing of the light appears in the (for which see below) unaccountably became Hong Kong Government Gazette, 21st Sept. labelled ‘Sheung Sze Mun’, which name it 1895, p.1041 and its removal to Green Island retains on the latest iteration of the Survey in Hong Kong Government Gazette, 27th April & Mapping Office’s new GeoInfo digital 1901, Notification No. 250; the temporary light online map at the time of writing (16.2.2019). on Green Island in Hong Kong Government Obviously the same name appears not far to Gazette, 30th December 1904, p.1971, the south west in larger letters as the toponym Notification No.903 and the lighting of the new for the channel between Hong Kong Island and light using the Cape D’Aguilar lantern, Hong Beaufort Island (Lo Chau - 螺洲 (Conch or Kong Government Gazette, 11th August 1905, Spiral Shell Island). Such are the vicissitudes No.1237, Notification No. 510 of vectorized digital mapping. SBE 13 Cape D’Aguilar: an Example of Multilayered Heritage

his assistants, along with a small signal on all ships, once a ship was out of station, all of which stood below and sight of land no one would know where to the east of the light and of which no it was until it reached the next signal photographs seem to remain, had fallen station and ‘made its number’ – that into ruin and were demolished to build is, hoisted the flags of its code letters student quarters for the Swire Institute to tell a lighthouse signal station who of Marine Science of the University of it was. When ships disappeared, as too Hong Kong. Today all that remains of often they did, the only way of knowing the earlier complex is a stone staircase where to go and look for any survivors and some traces of retaining walls. was to identify the last lighthouse to which the ship had ‘spoken’ during its voyage. BECOMING A HONG KONG PLACE 2: FLAGS, If Cape D’Aguilar’s prominent TELEGRAPH AND RADIO geographical position ensured it was the site of Hong Kong’s first lighthouse, The signal station that was part of the the same location – and the history of lighthouse from the word go was also a lighthouse signal stations – meant this small indicator of the next of the major area occupies just as important a place layers of a multilayered heritage place. in the history of telecommunications in Hong Kong. The lighthouse was Like most early lighthouses, Cape extinguished in 1896, because the D’Aguilar had a flagstaff from which Chinese Maritime Customs had built it signaled ships using flags in the a new light on Waglan Island in 1893. still relatively new International Code 19 But because China wasn’t Hong Kong, of Signals. They would tell the the signal station stayed in place to talk lighthouse what their ship’s name was to mariners and to the new Chinese and where it was going or was coming 20 lighthouse. That made sense because from. This was very important because in 1872 the first submarine cable had for almost half a century after 1875, been landed in Hong Kong at Telegraph that’s until the wireless radio, invented Bay in Pokfulam, where Cyberport in the 1890s, began to become standard now is, and so Hong Kong was ‘wired’ and a message from a ship to Waglan, 19 This had been a British initiative in 1857, once sent to the Cape D’Aguilar signal when frustration with the extant fourteen most prominent codes in use led to the forming of station could be rapidly forwarded to its a Signal Committee by the Board of Trade destination. in 1855, who promulgated their Commercial Code, later The Commercial Code of Signals for the Use of All Nations (London: William The signal station was marked for Mitchell (Shipping and Mercantile Gazette mariners by the old tower without Office), 1859), in 1856 – see Jellie (1999). its lantern – “Song Siu Tower”. That 20 The code book had a list of major places – ports, straits, headlands, etc. – as well as the arrangement continued once Waglan code letters of all registered ships. Island became British, following the SBE 14 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 8-28 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554

1898 Convention of Peking, when in communication with the signal stations 1900 a telegraph cable was laid landing at the Peak and at Cape D’Aguilar, at Cape D’Aguilar connected, initially which by arrangement with the Naval via the signal station, by telegraph to Authorities, are now manned by expert the urban area (Government of Hong naval signalmen.”(Government of Kong 1902 p.847 para 18). Five years Hong Kong 1907 p.708, para 64). later the link from Cape D’Aguilar to This new departure leads us on into the Central was converted to a telephone complex story of the world of modern line, for which forty-two iron poles communications and the multilayered were erected to carry the telephone ‘place’ that we are looking at. What wires between Cape D’Aguilar and next happened at Cape D’Aguilar leads Shaukeiwan (Government of Hong off in two directions – civilian and Kong 1905 p.518, para. 19).21 military.

From the perspective of the government, Although radio was first invented in the the signal station was closed down by 1890s, it wasn’t a sufficiently effective the Harbour Master in 1905 at the point and developed technology to be widely when the old lighthouse’s lantern, by used. Early adopters, of course, were now disused for nine years, was sent to the military, and we have a clear record Green Island. However, there is clear that by 1901 eighteen Royal Navy ships evidence – buried and muddied as usual on the China Station (headquartered by civil service obfuscation – that the in Hong Kong) had been fitted with signal station kept going, save in a new radio (Royal Navy 1901 Section IX, form and operated by the Royal Navy. p.68).22 In 1903 radio facilities for Curiously there is no direct trace of this the Royal Navy’s China Station were in the Hong Kong government records, being considered and the very effective only a note in the Report of the Director use of radio by the Japanese fleet in of Public Works nearly two years later the Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905 that “…telephone lines were constructed placing the Naval Yard in direct 22 All the ships are named at http://www. dreadnoughtproject.org/tfs/index.php/British_ 21 The first telephone in Hong Kong is claimed Adoption_of_Radio_Communication, accessed to have been installed in 1877, with a public on 16.2.2019 and were: HM Ships Endymion, service being introduced in 1882 - https:// Arethusa, Barfleur, Glory, Goliath, Albion, tel_archives.ofca.gov.hk/en/telecom_fact/ Blenheim, Eclipse, Cressy, Orlando, Argonaut, milestones/main.html accessed 16.2.2019. Astræa, Aurora, Dido, Isis, Pique, Talbot, & There is no evidence of any telephone Terrible. installation before a line connecting R.G. Alford, Architect with the trading house of McEwen, Frickel & Co. is reported in October 1881 (The China Mail, 21st October 1881, p.2), although the police force had begun agitating for a telephone system since 1877 (Government of Hong Kong 1878 para. 7) SBE 15 Cape D’Aguilar: an Example of Multilayered Heritage

accelerated planning.23 By 1905 the the Bogue Forts (虎門炮台), four in the Royal Navy and the British Colonial West River, two in the East River and Office had taken the first step and two in the North River, suggested that although the evidence indicates that the patrolling naval ships worked only a radio station installed that year was with HMS King Alfred, the flagship in Royal Navy operated, it also suggests Hong Kong (Royal Navy 1908 pp.48- this was under the aegis of Britain’s 49).25 However, we do know that the Colonial Office, which may explain the land station at Cape D’Aguilar was seamless shift of land use between 1905 working in 1906 when a government and the closure of the Harbour Master’s report on the devastation of that year’s Office’s civilian signal station, and Bingwu typhoon mentioned in an aside its instant re-emergence as a wireless that “HMS Tamar’s signal log shows station operated by the Royal Navy, that Torpedo Boat No. 38 was alongside without the matter ever emerging in the at 8.5, under orders to proceed to paragraphs dealing with the transfer D’Aguilar wireless telegraph station” of lands to military and naval use.24 (Government of Hong Kong 1907b).26 Perhaps this is also why the installation seems never to have been referred to as a wireless station, only as a signaling AN ENTR’ACTE: HOK TSUI station, though how long it was in VILLAGE ACTS AGAINST operation is unclear. PIRATES

One of the uses of the Royal Navy’s If most of the mileage being made radio system over the next few years, in transforming the Cape D’Aguilar which was also revelatory of the effect area from a remote, small subsistence of land masses on radio propagation, agricultural settlement to part of was by anti-piracy patrols in the Pearl modern colonial Hong Kong was being River delta. A report on this work, made by the colonial authorities, the which involved setting up land radio villagers were also at work. stations initially at Danes’ Island and in Guangzhou proper, and later one at It is not clear exactly when but at some point in the last half of the 19th century, possibly in the decade or so before the 23 Report of Inspection of Marconi Company’s lighthouse was built, the villagers at Works and Wireless Telegraphy Stations, 1903, Hok Tsui felt sufficiently insecure that para 6, p.116 and 13, p.117 at http://www. rnmuseumradarandcommunications2006.org. they decided they needed some sort uk/CommsColRight/WW1%20WT/1903/1903. of protection. The three story, granite htm accessed on 16.2.2019. The use of radio in the Russo-Japanese War was a staple of the newspapers in 1904 and 1905, a typical round 25 The King Alfred was China Station flagship up being an editorial, South China Morning th from 1906-1910. Post, 18 April 1904, p.4 26 24 Supplement to the Hong Kong Government South China Morning Post, Apr 29, 1905, p.5 Gazette, 22nd March, 1907, para. 15. SBE 16 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 8-28 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554 faced watchtower tower they then built the 1890s there were ten boys in Hok at the eastern end of the village does Tsui’s small village school, which was not appear on Lt T.B. Collinson’s 1845 a doubling of the five male children map, which shows only two or possibly recorded in the village in 1856.30 The three houses. It therefore post-dates government village rent roll only 1845 (Volonteri 1888).27 The present records one lot until 1921, thereafter it tower includes reinforced concrete and jumps to 181 until 1928 when it rises steel framed windows, which may have to 182, thereafter declining steadily been 20th century improvements or part to 123 in 1940. How to interpret that of the original structure, so the date of data is moot, but it argues a fairly small first construction is uncertain and local village with dispersed land holdings memories are vague.28 The best we can that did not much grow until greater say is that the construction date was economic opportunity in the urban area between 1865 and 1915. by the end of the 19th century. At that point, although probably many villagers The village also had mixed fortunes, actually lived and worked in the urban such as one can work out from vestigial area, they were careful to register data. The census records, not by any their rights to land holdings when means reliable, suggest that in 1856 the that became an issue, which might village had 37 inhabitants and that in explain the sudden rise in the rent roll 29 1911 it had 39. In between its people in the 1920s. Given the harsh marginal were counted in with either Sheko or land surrounding it and a not wholly Stanley, so whether at some stage it perpetual water supply, the limits to became significantly more populous growth without the developed urban we cannot readily tell, although the backing are not surprising.31 data for neither Sheko nor Stanley fluctuates markedly over this period. In The village is still quiet, though a more recent, post-1950s ‘squatter’ development, labelled on maps Lower 27 Volonteri’s 1866 map shows no settlement at Hok Tsui Village, now straggles down all, though that is not indicative, it is shown at various points below the access with perhaps 3 or four houses on Stanford’s 2” to 1 mile (Volonteri 1888). The 11th October road towards the cliff top. Some of the 1895 Ordnance Map, an update of Collinson, houses have attracted improvement and shows no buildings, only fields. The War Office, Ordnance Survey Department map of

1913 based on a 1909-1910 survey shows only 30 th two buildings, neither clearly the tower. Hong Kong Government Gazette, 24 June 28 th 1893, Table VI, p.643. The watch tower was listed as Grade II on 24 31 June 2010 as No. 495 in the AMO’s list of The village water supply was once served by 1,444 listed buildings - http://www.aab.gov.hk/ a fairly permanent spring – i.e. one that only form/AAB-SM-chi.pdf accessed on 19.2.2019. dried up in the driest years – high up on Hok 29 Hong Kong Government Gazette, 12th April Tsui Mountain at around 210m where a small 1856, vol. 1, No. 41, Govt. Notification No. stream that flows down east of the village has 45 and Report on the Census of the Colony for its source. 1911, No. 7 of 1911, Table XIV, p.103. SBE 17 Cape D’Aguilar: an Example of Multilayered Heritage

there is a regular flow of cars along later, one year after the outbreak of the the narrow road. However, the original First World War, a civilian radio station village has clearly lost inhabitants – begins work. At the same time the now there are empty and ruined buildings disused signal station gained a new and abandoned fields – and manifestly tenant: a lookout and signal station, lacks investment in significant connected to the radio station, manned improvement of its building stock and by Royal Navy and British army facilities. personnel.

As the peninsula’s earliest ‘place’ and Government is always rather slower hence, from a heritage point of view, to get in on an act, but what we its oldest settlement, it has a sadly today call the electromagnetic or neglected feel. radio spectrum was quickly seen by government to be something to be controlled, just as many governments BECOMING A HONG KONG today think the internet is something PLACE 3: A WARTIME they should control. Controlling the LOOKOUT, A FULLY- means of communication means that FLEDGED RADIO STATION if you want to or have to, you can AND A RADIO BEACON control what is communicated. After a lot of preliminary activity beginning Recapping the story so far, first there in around 1902, in 1904 the imperial was nothing but a very marginal government in Britain passed the settlement and otherwise open Wireless Telegraphy Act, which granted countryside and coastline maybe with control of radio waves to Britain’s names, maybe not. Next came a mapped General Post Office – so by extension and charted area with ‘local’ names all British Empire post offices like the of uncertain origins and therefore Hong Kong system – which became the correctness along with ascribed British authority that licensed all senders and colonial toponyms. Then comes a receivers and punished those who used lighthouse that only works for 21 years radio equipment without a licence. before it becomes a topless tower with a signal station and flagstaff. Five years Meanwhile, keeping up with the need after it loses its status as a lighthouse, to make sure no one interfered with the the first submarine telegraph cable communications of the Royal Navy, comes ashore at the Cape, directly the Hong Kong government passed linking Waglan Island with Cape its Wireless Telegraphy Ordinance as D’Aguilar and then by telephone line No. 7 of 1903. That made it clear that to the urban area. Shortly afterwards, the issue was all about control as, with the marine signal station closes down matters colonial, it so often was. An but immediately carries on as a naval actual radio station at Cape D’Aguilar, communications centre. Then, ten years SBE 18 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 8-28 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554 operated by the Post Office, did not More interesting, the radio station also go into service until 7th July 1915. The became Hong Kong’s first example of station, with its two buildings and two, a marine and aviation radio direction 203’ tall, 2’ internal diameter tubular finding service, a technology that had steel masts, 400’ apart, was located begun life in the 1880s but only become fairly much where the main structures a viable aid to navigation with the of today’s PCCW station still are.32 invention of the Bellini-Tosi direction finder in 1909 and its full development Initially the signal station was manned after 1920.34 by people called “Post Office (Naval Section) personnel” – i.e. trained Royal During all of these developments Navy personnel on secondment to a actually getting to Cape D’Aguilar had special part of the Post Office. Their been a problem itself. Until 1929 the job was to transmit and receive radio only road communication had been telegrams and semaphore telegrams to a just-about-drivable track. But from and from passing vessels. A wonderful 1929-1933 a proper 10-foot wide road blend of the old – semaphore – and was put in.35 That was a reflection not the new, radio. Once the First World just of the need for better land access War was in full swing the Royal Navy to a fast growing radio station. It was personnel were joined by British army also a sign of the times. Tensions in the personnel to help keep a watch out for region were getting greater and greater the enemy shipping that didn’t exist. and it was clear to British defence The look out and signal station stayed planners that the new enemy was Japan. in use until at least 1919. 33

Post-war the radio station grew in size BECOMING A HONG KONG as radio became a more widespread PLACE 4: THE GUNS system of ship-to-shore communication, ARRIVE but it stayed a public sector institution. In 1930 a new building was added to The First World War, like all wars, had the original station and in 1940 there put technological development into was a further extension. By the mid- fast forward mode. Air travel and aerial 1930s it was working on 33 frequencies warfare had suddenly moved from using twenty-one different call signs, quaint developments to the forefront all variants of Hong Kong’s set of VPS, of technical change. Naval warfare ZB, ZC and ZE (Government of Hong had developed massively, beginning Kong 1928 sect IV, pp.F6 & F7.). 34 Notice to Mariners No. S65, Hong Kong 32 South China Morning Post, 18th May 1914, p.7, Government Gazette, 14th February 1930, p.89. 25th June 1915, p.3, 15th July 1915, p.3, 16th 35 Hong Kong Government Gazette, Notice No. July 1915, p.3. S20, January 1929, tenders invited for “10’ 33 https://gwulo.com/atom/19423 accessed width path to Cape D’Aguilar Wireless Station 16.3.2019 (1st section)”. SBE 19 Cape D’Aguilar: an Example of Multilayered Heritage

with the launch of Britain’s HMS At the shortest ranges, it meant having Dreadnought in 1906, and the coming fortified locations (called pillboxes) into service of the first effective, ocean backed up by searchlights to help them going submarines just before the First identify targets in the dark, which could World War. Guns swiftly developed in fight off any invading force that got range and hitting power. The maximum close enough to the coast to threaten a range of the largest land and naval guns landing. in 1900 had been about 13km reaching 15km by 1906. But the pressures of The fourth layer looked upwards. the First World War meant that by As noted, the First World War had the 1930s the longest range 15” guns massively changed the whole nature could throw a 0.9 tonne shell 30km. If of warfare with the fast development the hitting power of guns had greatly of reconnaissance, bomber and fighter increased, the armour ships used to aircraft. It followed that both vital protect themselves had also been infrastructure – let’s not forget that by improved by the experiences of war. the late 1930s Cape D’Aguilar, with Hung Hom and Victoria Peak, was the Put it all together and the result, in the location of Hong Kong’s most modern 1936 Defence Review of how Hong and most important long distance Kong could be defended against the communications – and the defences increasingly threatening new enemy necessary to hold an enemy invasion by with more heavily armoured ships sea at bay needed defence from aerial and bigger, harder hitting guns, meant attack. a wholesale change in Hong Kong’s system of coastal defence. What was to We can see all of this happening at happen was to have four ‘layers’.36 Cape D’Aguilar during the 1930s. In the first layer, the two 9.2” guns that First, Hong Kong’s defensive perimeter had been at Pottinger Battery at the was to be pushed outwards by moving foot of Devil’s Peak were moved to some existing gun emplacements and a new location just north of the old constructing new ones. Second, the Cape D’Aguilar Lighthouse. The new perimeter was to be ‘thickened’ so that location was called Bokhara Battery any attacking enemy could not only and was manned in 1941, not long after be engaged early at long range, but it had been completed, by the 8th (Coast) could be continuously bombarded as Regiment’s 30th Coastal Battery under its forces got nearer. That meant having Major Cecil Templer RA. That was the additional, intermediate and close- long range component that, with its Mk. range guns in the coastal defence mix. X 9.2” guns, threw a 170kg shell nearly 27km at maximum possible range at a rate of about one shell every minute for 36 The best exposition of these complex developments is Kwong and Choi (2014 Chs. each gun. 5-7). SBE 20 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 8-28 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554

For closer range work, set up on BECOMING A HONG the hillside of Hok Tsui to the west KONG PLACE 5: ADDED of Bokhara Battery and manned TOPONYMY by gunners of 1 Battery of the HK Volunteer Defence Corps under Capt. With the arrival of the 9.2” battery we G.F. Rees was Cape D’Aguilar Battery also have a new name: Bokhara. Where with two 4” naval guns each of which does that come from? could fire its 14kg shell at close range, or out to the maximum range of around Obviously, as a name, it belongs to 13.5 km. Around Cape D’Aguilar itself, a wonderful and very ancient city in in اراخب ) where there are only two small beaches, Central Asia (today Bukhara but otherwise rugged cliffs and rocks, Uzbekistan), 布哈拉 in modern Chinese there were no close in defence pillboxes and 捕喝 in high Tang Dynasty days) for the good reason that it was very that grew rich as a central emporium unlikely any enemy would consider on the original Silk Road from China landing there, though down below Hok to the West.38 But was this a name Tsui Tsuen on the western tip of the given solely by the British military peninsula, there was a combined pillbox and reflective of a battle honour of an and searchlight emplacement watching artillery regiment and nothing to do over the entrance to Tai Tam Bay. with the history of Hong Kong?39

To cope with the potential threat of The actual answer is very much a an air attack, higher up the hillside Hong Kong story. We can get a small above the Cape D’Aguilar Battery clue as to how the battery got its name were two 3”, mobile anti-aircraft guns from that interim name of the Cape – or possibly Bofors and Lewis guns D’Aguilar lighthouse tower once it had (the jury is out) – manned by 18th AA lost its light in 1896: Songsiu Tower. Battery under Capt (temp. Major) J.C. Because just as Song Siu Rock – an Rochefort Boyd RA.37 underwater danger just north of the lighthouse – seems to have given its So, in addition to our village, its name to the tower, when it stopped watchtower, a lighthouse, a signal being a lighthouse for eighty-one station, a lookout, a radio station, a years, so another underwater hazard radio direction finder and a new motor road, by the dreadful moment of Hong Kong’s surrender on Christmas Day, 38 One of Bukhara’s many names is Madinat Al 1941, we also have heavy, medium and Tujjar, which means the City of Merchants. 39 This would be a quite reasonable conjecture, anti-aircraft artillery emplacements. the Royal Artillery often giving such names to its batteries as with the 7 (Sphinx), 8 (Alma), 23 (Gibraltar 1779-1783), 79 (Kirkee) and 37 For the disposition of personnel, the 148 (Meiktila) Batteries of 29 Commando best resource remains http://www. Regiment RA, familiar to the author from his hongkongwardiary.com/ days as a Royal Marine. SBE 21 Cape D’Aguilar: an Example of Multilayered Heritage

gave its name to the new gun battery new gun battery called itself after the that opened for its aggressive business rock out over which its guns directly in late 1940 or early 1941. Bokhara looked and, in anger, would fire. So, Rocks. that’s yet another layer to the Cape D’Aguilar palimpsest – another link to It’s a long story – too long for here – but the world of the sea and sea trade, and it links the British Empire’s principal an indirect link to the Silk Road. passenger liner and mail transport shipping company, the Peninsula and And then came the occupation and, Oriental Steam Navigation Co. Ltd. eventually, the return of the British and (鐵行輪船公司), and a maritime peace. accident to one of its vessels on the ship’s maiden voyage in 1873. The SS Bokhara was leaving Hong Kong BECOMING A HONG KONG on its way back to Britain when it PLACE 6: NEW LAYERS ‘found’ a rock that was not on the chart AND NEW USES that Commander Belcher had rather hastily surveyed when he named Cape After the war very little of the military D’Aguilar Tylong Head in 1841. The side of Cape D’Aguilar went back ship nearly sank, though fortunately into operation. Instead of coastal managed to turn around and steam onto defence guns, the military presence a beach near the Kowloon Docks in became the Royal Air Force, which Hung Hom before it did. It was quickly ran a small radar station – much as repaired and went back into service they did with Mt Davis – it seems by until, tragically, it was wrecked on the transforming at least one of the old 9.2” gun emplacements into a radar antenna Penghu Islands in a typhoon in 1892 on 41 its way back from Shanghai, drowning installation. The old government most on board, including almost all of Post Office run radio station was the Hong Kong Interport cricket team. handed over to the British empire- wide operation that had emerged in the In the time-honoured way of the sea, the 1920s, after a period of consolidation of rock that nearly claimed the Bokhara many separate companies, as a massive, was named after it – as it still is if you world wide operator of submarine look at an older chart40 – and in turn the cable and radio stations called Cable & Wireless. That’s why you can see at Cape D’Aguilar an echo of China 40 In common with most of the historically illiterate – and ideologically partisan – present first getting ‘wired’ in the 1870s when HK Government’s products, the most recent charts have ‘cleansed’ themselves of this Marine Department of the HKSARG - https:// unacceptable ‘colonial’ hangover, so whilst www.hydro.gov.hk/eng/eseago.php accessed the rocks are charted, they have no name. 16.3.2019 You can see this if you load the new eSeaGo 41 https://gwulo.com/raf-cape-daguilar accessed app from the Hydrographic Office and the 16.3.2019. SBE 22 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 8-28 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554 the, originally Danish, Great Northern building was put up on a concrete plinth Telegraph Company (大北電報公司) with, to the east of it, four huge pylons first brought the electric telegraph to carrying anemometers to measure wind China. Because the ‘first mover’ had speeds.42 This was the comparatively that name, Cable & Wireless inherited it short-lived Centre of High Buildings as its Chinese name, so on an old Cable Research. All that remain today are & Wireless Building in the compound some of the concrete bases in which the where a modern fibre optic cable comes feet of the anemometer towers stood. ashore, you can still see a sign with 大 北電報 (Great Northern Telegraph)! In the meantime the Royal Air Force The area was for some twenty years had given up their fighter control radar closed to anyone except those working station, which could be better managed at the military installation or radio from Waglan Island and, with the rise station. of satellite communications, the role of maritime radio stations began very The next layer of the complex place rapidly to decline.43 Cape D’Aguilar we’re looking at began its brief, ten to became Sleepy Hollow and all the signs twelve-year life in around 1966. It was of its busy and complex past began to about then that HKU got its foothold on get taken over again by nature. Cape D’Aguilar, a foothold it has kept right up until today. The author of this 42 was the then Chair of Engineering at Published references to this exercise are hard to find, but see the obituary for Professor Mackey, HKU, Professor Sean Mackey. One of The Irish Times, 2nd October 1997 at https:// Professor Mackey’s research interests www.irishtimes.com/opinion/professor-sean- was the engineering of high buildings mackey-1.112027 accessed 16.3.2019 and Sean Mackey’s encomium on the presentation of his and how they should best be designed Honorary Doctorate at HKU at https://www4. to cope with the very strong winds hku.hk/hongrads/index.php/archive/graduate_ Hong Kong gets when a typhoon blows detail/202 accessed on 16.3.2019. The Faculty of Engineering has produced two unpublished in. These were days when wind tunnels histories that cover the life of the Centre of High were very large and very expensive and Buildings Research: J.A. Clark, “The History used almost entirely by the aeronautical of Engineering at Hong Kong University from 1912 to 1988”, in “75 Years of Engineering”, industry. HKU didn’t have the space Faculty of Engineering, University of Hong or the money for a wind tunnel – back Kong, 1988, and “Engineering at HKU: 90 in pre-computer, pre-digital days much Years of Dedication”, Faculty of Engineering, University of Hong Kong, 2002. For an image larger than such a facility today – so of the structure see https://www.swims.hku.hk/ Professor Mackey decided to recruit history/, p.2, 1960s accessed 16.3.2019. 43 nature. Government granted a site right Hong Kong’s is still open twenty years after most of the world closed theirs down, probably at the tip of Cape D’Aguilar below the for much the same reason that it took twelve lighthouse and a strange ten-storey years to get it built and open in the first place. Bureaucratic inertia coupled, these days, with oligarch involvement – it’s real estate after all – and probably mainland security interests are the probable explanations. SBE 23 Cape D’Aguilar: an Example of Multilayered Heritage

CAPE D’AGUILAR: high buildings research unit platform.44 TODAY’S MULTILAYERED HERITAGE PLACE Two years later the sea around Cape D’Aguilar, for all the years of this Since the demise of the high building narrative so far a mere spectator of research station, there have been new the events on land, gained recognition leases of life for this long used space. when it was declared one of Hong In 1975 the Marine Department, in Kong’s very few and very small Marine the full flush of a major campaign to Reserves where no fishing or any other provide light beacons all over Hong sort of predatory or destructive activity Kong waters, decided that the old is allowed. Song Siu Tower could again become a That focusses our minds – and eyes – light. That’s why, perched on top of an briefly on the glories of Cape D’Aguilar 1875, granite block lighthouse tower simply as a physical location – a you can now find a late 20th century natural space. It has stunning natural medium power beacon (flashing every beauty – including the exciting sea arch 15 seconds, range 20 miles, as with right through the peninsula below the the original) installed a century later. staircase leading from SWIMS to the Below the light, where its lighthouse student quarters – as well as the bird keeper’s cottage, lookout and signaling life and vegetation typical of the more flagstaff once stood only the staircase rugged parts of our coastline. Here too remains. In the place of the demolished there is heritage, if we look observantly, structures of which no trace remains in the ‘exotic’ Norfolk pines that were are the new student quarters for HKU brought from the eponymous island postgraduate students working at the in the Tasman Sea during the colonial Swire Institute of Marine Sciences period. (SWIMS). There is also, over the back of the SWIMS itself – which also built some peninsula, below the soaring slopes of staff quarters a little further west Hok Tsui Shan (鶴咀山), the reminder down the access road to the student of how fragile Hong Kong’s ecology quarters and the lighthouse – began is and how subject it is to constant life as the Swire Marine Laboratory and largely ignored abuse even within within the Faculty of Science. The comparatively pristine locations far present building was begun in 1989 from the urban area. The deep gulley and opened for work in 1990. It got leading away east north east of the its present name in 1994, when it entrance to the ‘restricted area’ of the also expanded a bit. It is probable the radio station drops down to a beach building was constructed either on, or on the demolished site of the previous 44 For the history of SWIMS see the previous footnote website reference. SBE 24 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 8-28 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554 fronting a small bay aptly named Lap Hon-Tai 2 linking Hong Kong and Sap Wan (垃圾灣 – Garbage Bay) Taiwan in 1990. That has now been (WWF 2014). Each effort to clear it of joined by two more: the 1993 APC, garbage is followed by the next torrent a 7516 km submarine cable linking blown in by easterly winds meaning Miura and Miyazaki (Japan), Toucheng trying to keep it clean is a constant (Taiwan), Cape D’Aguilar (Hong battle, not to mention the plastic Kong), Cherating (Malaysia) and dumped above the tideline that the wind Katong (Singapore), and the newbie in then picks up and drives into the thick 2016, AAE-1, a 25,000km submarine vegetation of the hillside above the bay. cable from South East Asia to Europe across Egypt, connecting Hong Meanwhile, back up the hill, the Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, modern communications world, Singapore, Thailand, India, Pakistan, piggy-backing on the long history of Oman, UAE, Qatar, Yemen, Djibouti, telecommunications at Cape D’Aguilar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Greece, Italy and was arriving. A new building was France. That certainly beats the 350 constructed between the lighthouse mile range over open water and 200 and Bokhara Battery to be a terminal mile range over hilly country of the th for a late 20 century update to the first radio station, let alone the data submarine telegraph cable that had transmission rate of the laboriously arrived at Telegraph Bay (today tapped out Morse Code signals of that Cyberport) in 1872. first telegraph cable.

A WWII power generator bunker for The most recent arrival, and antiaircraft search lights was located another thoughtless architectural near the peak of the hill, as can be seen blot in a beautiful area, is the joint from 1963 RC Hunting’s aerial photos, Environmental Protection Department but along with many other buildings and Hong Kong Observatory Cape from that period, the ruins have D’Aguilar Supersite Air Quality disappeared beneath thick vegetation. Monitoring Station. The new facility (2017) has been built on an older The heir of the old Post Office radio platform, typically obliterating all trace system in Hong Kong, originally a of that platform’s past as part of the subsidiary of Cable & Wireless, was Cape D’Aguilar 6” gun battery and the Hong Kong Telephone Company so another lost, small pointer to the Limited, formed in 1925 when it took complex history at which we have been over an old company called the China looking. The sadness is how an entirely and Japan Telephone and Electric worthy goal – keeping track of ozone Company. A complicated history pollution – can seemingly only be followed, which from the point of achieved at the expense of the historical view of Cape D’Aguilar comes down and visual environment. That is a to the landing of an optic fibre cable SBE 25 Cape D’Aguilar: an Example of Multilayered Heritage

story with which everyone concerned aerodynamics of high buildings in with heritage conservation is only too strong winds, from marine biology familiar. to lighthouse optics, from the maths of hydrographic and topographic surveying to the economics of the CONCLUSION telecommunications industry, from the physics of medium and high frequency The story of Cape D’Aguilar is typical antenna design to the logistics of of the story of almost any significant building and sustaining a gun battery in piece of built heritage when understood a remote location. in its full context. It is not the story of a single building. It is the story of Scattered all over the area are the traces a complex whole in a landscape that of a past that has either been obliterated stretches backwards through time. As – in which case the traces are vestigial it does its ramifying branches lead one – or can still be seen in various states. off into different domains of the past Many, especially the oldest, are mere out of which our present has emerged remnants fast disappearing under – shipping, navigation, mapping, encroaching vegetation. Not a trace war, communications, scholarship seems to remain, for example, of and research, toponymy, imperialism the original buildings and antenna and colonialism, public policy and bases of the first, 1905-1920s radio many others. It also leads one off into station. Others, like the structures of other timelines and other stories via Bokhara Battery, are in ruinous states, objects, events, and people that have utterly neglected and decaying as year been involved in its many pasts – the succeeds year. Some, like the remaining Hakka villagers whose home it has antennas of the present radio station, are been for at least two centuries, the obsolescent or obsolete and will cease lighthouse keepers and their attendants having any purpose in the next few and families and the many ships they years. Yet is anyone thinking about a served, the radio technicians, the sensible plan to conserve this first ever sailors, soldiers and airmen (British, location of Hong Kong’s radio world or Chinese, Indian, Japanese) who served any examples of the ‘black arts’ of MF/ the signal, radio and radar stations, the HF antenna design? academics and students who worked on high buildings and those who now work Cape D’Aguilar is a wonderful example on marine life. of why heritage matters.45

Fully comprehending and following such a complex tale demands that one stretch one’s mind to accommodate 45 See http://heritage.hku.hk/hongkong/map for all sorts of branches of learning as yet a very partial effort to map this heritage – the database lists just three out of possibly from the ballistics of artillery to the seven or eight heritage features of the area. SBE 26 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 8-28 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554

REFERENCES Government of Hong Kong (1907), Report of the Director of Public Works, st Barnett K M A (1974), “Do Words from 1 November 1907. Extinct Pre-Chinese Languages Survive in Hong Kong Place Names?” Journal Government of Hong Kong (1928), of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Report of the Director of the Royal Branch, 14: 136-159. Observatory Hong Kong for 1928.

Collinson R (1844), Surveying Journal Jellie J P (1999) “Just Four flags? The of Captain Richard Collinson, China Commercial Code of Signals for the 1840-1844, manuscript notebook, Use of All Nations”, The Mariner’s United Kingdom Hydrographic Office Mirror, vol. 85:3, 288-298. Archives, OD153. rd King J W & Master R N (1861), 3 Davies S (2012), “Lt T.B. Collinson,” edition of the British Hydrographic Office’s China Pilot (John W. King, Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography, rd Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Master R.N., The China Pilot, 3 ed., Press, 107. London: Hydrographic Office, 34.

Horsburgh J (1827), India Directory Kwong C M & Tsoi Y L (2014), or Directions for Sailing to and from Eastern Fortress: a military history of the East Indies, China, New Holland, Hong Kong, 1840-1970, Hong Kong: Cape of Good Hope, Brazil and the Hong Kong University Press, Chs 5-7. Interjacent Ports, 3rd ed., 2., London: Norton-Kyshe J W (1898), History of Parbury, Allen & Co., 321. the Laws and Courts of Hong Kong, Government of Hong Kong (1873), London: T Fisher Unwin, 1, 32 and . Report of the Harbour Master. Ch.III

Government of Hong Kong (1878), Ross D & Maughan P (1810), A Chart Report of the Acting Captain- of Passages Leading to Macao Roads, Superintendent of Police, 15.2.1878. London: East India Company.

Government of Hong Kong (1887), Royal Navy (1901), Annual Report of Report of the Harbour Master. the Torpedo School.

Government of Hong Kong (1902), Report of the Director of Public Works, 8th December 1902.

Government of Hong Kong (1905), Report of the Director of Public Works, 28th April 1905. SBE 27 Cape D’Aguilar: an Example of Multilayered Heritage

Royal Navy (1908), “Precis of Report on Wireless Telegraphy Work Carried out in Connection with the Suppression of Piracy in Canton Delta”. Annual Report of the Torpedo School, December 1907-January 1908.

Volonteri M S (1888), Map of Hong Kong with British Kowloon. London: Stanford’s Geographical Establishment.

SBE 28 Evolution of the Urban Renewal Institution in the Asian Context: A Comparison between Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei

Chun Liang LIN1 and Edwin HW CHAN2

ABSTRACT

Urban renewal is a collective process that entails wrestling and cooperation among stakeholders. An urban renewal institution is formed as a rule-structured environment to organize the outcome produced by the interaction between stakeholders. In the meantime, the urban renewal institution is remodified over time, so as to cope with the capricious challenges, which are continually reformed by global forces among cities’ rival conditions and the local emergence of each community’s aspirations.

This paper aims to study the institutional approach towards a benign urban renewal, as adopted by three comparable cities: Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei. These three cities are comparable because they are all Asian high-density cities that share similar Chinese culture, urban renewal issues, and, most importantly, a rivalry with each other. A theoretical framework has been developed to examine the key

1 Visiting Scholar, Department of Building and Real Estate and Research Institute for Sustainable Urban Development, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong. PhD student, Department of Architecture, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan. E-mail: [email protected]. 2 Professor, Department of Building and Real Estate and Research Institute for Sustainable Urban Development, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong. E-mail: edwin.chan@ polyu.edu.hk. SBE 29 Evolution of the Urban Renewal Institution in the Asian Context: A Comparison between Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei

components that orientate the urban Office was instituted in 2004. The renewal institution. The fundamental establishment of urban renewal urban renewal institution, along with organizations and their instituted the latest transformation of the three agendas reflected each government’s cities, are well-interpreted under the visions of reshaping its urban area. established framework of IAD. It was observed that even though global Tangibly, urban renewal pacifies the forces and local needs both enforced escalating public concerns over the substantial interference in the urban deteriorating state of buildings in the renewal institution and planning urban environment (Ho, Yau, Poon, strategies, the way to achieve an ideal & Liusman 2012). The government’s urban renewal is unprecedentedly own involvement in urban renewal is ambiguous. Therefore, a continual illustrated in the process of densification introspection derived from examining as an answer to population growth other similar cities becomes more and urbanization (Yung, Conejos, & indispensable. Chan, 2016), where the necessity of such involvement will only continue to increase in the future. Ideologically, KEYWORDS urban renewal helps promote a city’s competitive image by erasing its Urban Renewal Institution, repulsive areas and turns it into an Comparison, Hong Kong, Singapore, arena attractive to outside capital. In Taipei the meantime, enabling urban renewal is proof of a municipality’s ability to handle the difficulty of it. INTRODUCTION In light of the fact that lessons from Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei are comparing urban renewal institutions three Asian cities with high population will nourish one’s comprehension of densities that face urban renewal policy implementation (Carmon 1999), challenges. Over the past four decades, this paper studies the past and emerging each established statutory bodies to approaches to aspired urban renewal oversee its urban renewal process. The by contrasting the urban renewal earliest to do so was Singapore, whose institutions in Hong Kong, Singapore, Urban Redevelopment Authority has and Taipei. With the lessons drawn operated as a statutory government from comparing their evolution over the body since 1974. Hong Kong’s years and then focusing on their latest Urban Renewal Authority (URA) was policy stages, a more sophisticated formed in 2001 to succeed the Land urban renewal institution could be Development Corporation (LDC), achieved. while Taipei City’s Urban Regeneration

SBE 30 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 29-53 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554

METHODOLOGY 2014). As a result, when a study raises the number and scope of a research Overall Approach object from single to a comparison of multiple objects, the complication This paper first discusses the that originates from methodological comparability of the aforementioned difficulty is foreseeable. However, three cities in the Asian context. it has also been argued that research Second, a theoretical framework efforts tend to overstate the influence was established to examine the of different national contexts on institutional complexity and ensure urban governance (Simpson & the comparability between the three Chapman 1999). In order to reduce objects. Third, a framework was the incomparability to an interpretable adopted to evaluate the evolution of extent, this paper introduces Hong the urban renewal institution. As Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan as the what Hyra (2012) suggested, “a three jurisdictions for comparative comparative historical method which study. As Carmon (1999) argued, assesses the similarities and differences “the similarities in the history of between the old and new urban renewal planned intervention in urban areas are periods enables a deeper meaning partly attributed to the international to contemporary urban policies and policy transfer, but to a larger extent, outcomes”. Hence, this comparative are related to similarities in the study engages not only the current socioeconomic and socio-political urban renewal institutions of three developments in Western countries”. metropolis, but the recent changes in From an Asian perspective, the three the institutions were also taken into jurisdictions, which share some consideration. The final part of this similarities, are ideal objects of study. paper discusses the evolution of the Given the fact that the political urban renewal institutions adopted by economy of a place will determine the three cities. the nature and content of its urban Selecting Cities for Comparison planning mechanisms (Ng 1999), Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan, Peck argued that, “rich descriptions which were among the first Asian of individual city-sites substitute for “dragon” economies during the the tracing of urbanization processes second half of the 20th Century, had across cases and places – a form of similar socioeconomic and urban methodological isolation which can environments. Recently, the IMD’s be likened to an attempt to understand World Competitiveness Rankings, fluvial dynamics by first removing a which analyse the economic bucket of water from the stream” (Peck performance, government efficiency, business competence, and infrastructure SBE 31 Evolution of the Urban Renewal Institution in the Asian Context: A Comparison between Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei

availability of each country, disclosed areas with less concern focused that Hong Kong, Singapore, and on the resource allocation among Taiwan occupied the top three places in municipalities. The third comparative that order in the Asia-Pacific region for object, Taipei, as the capital of Taiwan, 2017 (IMD World Competitiveness inherently receives favour from a Center 2017). In view of the superior in that extra financial resources prevailing “place wars” climate, “going and political power are endowed to global” has become the very nature realize the central government’s desire of the Southeast Asian context (Yeoh to turn Taipei into a representative 2005). This prevalent inclination global city. The abovementioned shared by dominant global cities straightforwardness in planning describes the extremely competitive consideration enables the three cities’ and fertile grounds for an ambitious urban renewal approaches to be urban policy with an attempt to increase evidently demonstrated. Although supply of land, raise competitiveness, each has a different identity that stems seek foreign investment, and enhance from its own background, it can still be employment opportunities (Uršič & primarily regarded as a city-level entity Križnik 2012). Upon closer inspection and compared to the others on the basis with a focus on urban renewal, it of city government (Zhang 2004, p.14). has been argued that “contemporary This simplified identity helps the three urban redevelopment is a complex objects become commensurate with process of ‘glocalization’ where more each other. distant and proximate forces collide and have differential influences on producing urban change” (Hyra 2012). ESTABLISHING Considering these parallel tendencies A COMPARATIVE towards competitive edge are shared FRAMEWORK by the three jurisdictions, their urban renewal institutions have been spurred It was observed during the literature to a common goal and this makes a review that the vantage points adopted comparison between them feasible. by scholars in their comparative studies were widely scattered, which explained Cities as Comparative Objects: Hong the difficulty of thoroughly deciphering Kong, Singapore, and Taipei the urban renewal approach in different regions. As Dekker & Varady (2011) Hong Kong and Singapore both possess pointed out, “it is rather difficult to rather condensed administrative identify a one-and-only policy approach stratums regarding the urban planning in each country, since policies tend to system in compact territories, so the develop over time and are perceived majority of their attention tends to differently by each policy group”. be placed on their dense downtown The comparative framework adopted SBE 32 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 29-53 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554 in this paper was constructed after regarding the actions and strategies two tiers of engagement. First, the they take, leading to consequences for institutional analysis and development themselves and for others” (Ostrom (IAD) framework, established by 2005, p.3). Elinor Ostrom, was adopted as the preliminary framework to focus on Figure 1 illustrates the contour of the major components. Second, in order IAD framework. In brief, the focus of to translate the IAD components the IAD framework is the action arena into the context of an urban renewal where individuals interact with each institution, a further comparative other under structured prescriptions. framework constructed in a sub The action arena is affected by layer was elaborated on by distilling exogenous variables informed by the comparative discourses from the papers physical environments at that time. that contrasted the urban renewal and Outcomes are produced through planning mechanisms in different interactions among individuals and localities. A comparative framework these outcomes, in turn, affect the action that is supplemented by comparative arena. How the outcomes reshape the perspectives extracts interpretable ways participants interact with each discourses on urban renewal. other in the action arena is informed by the evaluative criteria, which are used to IAD Framework examine the performance of the whole institution by scrutinizing the pattern According to Ostrom, institutions are of interactions and outcomes. All of “the prescriptions that humans use the components discussed in the IAD to organize all forms of repetitive framework either directly or indirectly and structured interactions” (Ostrom affect each other by various means. 2005, p.3). Such interaction occurs Eventually, the whole institution is at all ranges of scales and entities that collectively impelled and dynamically “individuals interacting within rule- reshaped by these components over structured situations face choices time.

Figure 1. The IAD Framework. Source: Ostrom (2005 p.13). SBE 33 Evolution of the Urban Renewal Institution in the Asian Context: A Comparison between Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei

Moreover, the IAD framework is exceptionally pressing in the urban designed as a multi-tiered system to renewal arena mainly by virtue of the analyse the institutional complex. strong interdependence between the Zooming into the composition of the stakeholder in the public, private, and action arena, it could be decomposed civil sectors involved in the urban into multiple elements in a sub layer renewal process. These stakeholders and these elements collectively attempt to induce government decisions construct the so-called action situation, to benefit themselves and strengthen in which the participants cooperate the interests they represent. Forging and wrestle with one another. Ostrom alliances with actors from different defined this as “an action situation sectoral bases broadens their range of [that] refers to the social space where political support so that the resultant participants with diverse preferences governing coalitions become the means interact, exchange goods and services, for urban political actors to reframe solve problems, dominate one another, policy agendas, which, in turn, change or fight” (Ostrom 2005, p.14). Figure the institutional milieu where these 2 shows the IAD subcomponents that stakeholders reside (DiGaetano & are situated in the action situation. Strom 2003).

Even though compounded components The framework serves as a map for nest in multiple layers of the IAD exploring the theoretical complex. framework to collectively describe the An optimal map that can be used for institution, this paper argues that the all purposes does not exist because stakeholders are the dominant impetus the details of each level are useful for that forcefully orientate the whole different purposes (Ostrom 2005, p.8). institution. From an overview of the Considering the substantial influence institutional analysis, the institutions stakeholders can exert on the institution are the underlying rules of the game. for the places they reside in, this paper As North argued, the organizations, particularly focuses on three pivotal which are structured by groups of components that directly inform the role individuals from political, economic, of stakeholders in the IAD framework: social, and educational bodies, serve the participants, positions, and actions. as agents of institutional change The conceptual explanations of these (North 1990, p.5). In other words, the three components and how they are evolution of an institution results from further translated into the context of individuals who are situated in that urban and urban governance will be institution so the interaction between discussed below. the individuals becomes crucial. More specifically, in the context of urban renewal, Verhage (2005b) proposed that the stakes and difficulties of new modes of urban governance are SBE 34 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 29-53 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554

Figure 2. The Internal Structure of an Action Situation and the Focus of This Study. Source: Ostrom (2005, p.33). Translating the Pivotal IAD PARTICIPANTS in Urban Renewal: Components into the Context of Urban the Instituted ORGANIZATIONS as Renewal the Mediating Agents

In order to examine the approach According to Ostrom, “participants in adopted by the three jurisdictions in the an action situation are decision-making urban renewal institution for this paper, entities assigned to a position and the authors investigated the government capable of selecting actions from a set agencies which directly shoulder the of alternatives made available at nodes tasks of urban renewal. For two in a decision process” (Ostrom 2005, reasons: first, the government agency, p.38). The collective efforts made by as a public servant, represents the the participants redirect the outcome government to administratively mediate of the whole institution toward what is the conflicts between and redistribute aspired to by communities in power. the interests among the stakeholders. Second, the government agency serves In their comparison of urban governance as a key stakeholder in urban renewal and planning policy between Edinburgh in that its intrinsic aspiration is to be and Prague, Simpson and Chapman materialized. Most importantly, the (1999) suggested that various policy agenda is also a medium for stakeholders were the emerging key incarnating the collective vision of players within the decision-making one polity. Hence, it is incorporated and policy implementation processes. in the majority of the comparative By establishing partnerships, studies, as well as in this paper. Within communities and business engage the process of conflict mediation and in a participatory approach outside goal realization in urban renewal, the the formal governmental process to approach adopted by the government leverage funding for renewal projects agency brings the underlying urban and encourage inward investment. governance to light. Concomitantly, the processes of consultation, participation, and SBE 35 Evolution of the Urban Renewal Institution in the Asian Context: A Comparison between Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei

partnerships entail the reinvigoration (2012) concluded from comparing the of democracy and promotion of social urban renewal processes in Barcelona inclusion within civil society (Cento, and Seoul with a focus on urban Bull, & Jones 2006). Considering the management under conditions of global relationships between different levels of cities competition, a city government government and the formation of local that responds to the pressures and partnerships are central issues in the opportunities of globalization by field of urban renewal (Verhage 2005b) implementing a competitive urban and instituted government organizations policy actually opens doors for are the public agents for mediating the stakeholders who can take advantage interplay between stakeholders. of the situation and advance their own interests. POSITIONS in Urban Renewal: The CAPACITY to Formulate and Impose ACTIONS in Urban Renewal: Rules Formulated Urban Renewal PROGRAMME as Concrete Tools Positions are the set of anonymous slots into and out of which participants An action is the selection of a setting move (Ostrom 2005, p.40). Possessing or value as a control variable to reflect this position entitles a participant to the aspirations of a participant to affect take authorized actions in a regulated the resultant outcome of an institution situation. Besides, positions are the (Ostrom 2005, p.45). A manifestation bridge between participants and actions of actions varies by situation. in which the ability to take particular According to Ostrom, in game theory, actions is assigned to specific positions the set of actions available to a rather than to all (Ostrom 2005, p.41). participant at a specific decision point is called a move. The specific action Based on administrative orders, the selected from a set of authorized actions capacity of an actor describes its ability by a participant is called a choice. A to formulate rules and impose them complete specification of the moves to on others to coordinate the activities be taken during a possible contingency of different actors with command is called a strategy (Ostrom 2005, and control (Verhage 2005a). A p.45). hierarchical power that exists in a network between stakeholders In view of the market’s function articulates the power relationships through lucrative activities within the within their cooperation, commission, interaction of supply and demand, on and domination. In urban renewal, the its own it cannot produce the desired inclined power allocation is further transformations to facilitate any polarized by the overarching disposition synergetic work. Thus, the public of globalization. As Uršič and Križnik actors now endeavour to make an area SBE 36 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 29-53 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554 attractive for private investors (Verhage components and the latest changes 2005a). Similar findings on the in recent years will be discussed in government’s shift were observed in a sequence. It is worth noting that none comparative study of local governments of the existing policies or strategies has in Western countries. Goldsmith been deleted by the three jurisdictions. (1992) characterized the public sector In each case, the approach taken was to as an enabler that emphasises “moving incorporate new strategies. local government away from a concern as a producer of services to one in which local government enables others to produce, either independently or in partnership”. The development of an urban renewal programme as a consequence of evolving ideas demonstrates how urban governance translates into concrete tools and procedures to form an environment that is conducive to urban renewal (Verhage 2005b). In practice, an urban renewal programme reflects the issues that the formulated urban renewal institution aims to cope with, enables the difficulties in urban renewal to be addressed in a comprehensive way, and works toward the goals the government wants to achieve.

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE URBAN RENEWAL INSTITUTION

Based on the above established framework, the urban renewal institutions of the three cities will be evaluated in the following sections. Table 1 illustrates the findings on the three comparative objects. These are further organized under the comparative framework to decipher the principal components of an urban renewal institution. Both of their principal SBE 37 Evolution of the Urban Renewal Institution in the Asian Context: A Comparison between Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei

Table 1: Comparative Framework of the Urban Renewal Institution

Institutional Analysis and PARTICIPANTS POSITIONS ACTIONS Development (IAD) Framework Components The instituted IAD Components in Governmental The CAPACITY to formulate and Formulated urban renewal PROGRAMMES as ORGANIZATIONS as Urban Renewal Institution impose rules concrete tools mediating agents

A statutory body, but is not regarded as a Corporate and Business Plans Existing Urban Renewal Authority servant or agent of the government. No legitimacy is substantially equipped. Deficient transparency in publicized information

District-based and demand-led Hong Kong An advisory platform for public From pencil redevelopment to district-scale Newly-adopted District Urban Renewal Forum investigation renewal. Spontaneous approach with attention paid to community aspirations. Selective En-bloc Redevelopment Scheme Urban Redevelopment Authority Both are statutory government boards, Existing and Housing and Development the URA closely collaborates with the Mandatory enforcements that streamline the Board (HDB) HDB to revitalize obsolete HDB estates. process of revitalizing HDB flats and estates. Singapore To undertake land planning and the Remaking Our Heartland development of land in Singapore with Newly-adopted consolidated URA & HDB legislated form to support the unceasing Town-scale renewal goal of “an endearing home growth of a centralized authority. and a distinctive global city”. Rights transformation, tax reduction, and A municipal office branch that manages additional building bulk Taipei City Urban Regeneration Existing urban renewal in Taipei without Office sufficient resources. Induce the community and private sector’s voluntary participation. Taipei Government-led Urban Regeneration Non-profit legal foundation, the Taipei Urban Redevelopment Newly-adopted implementer of government-led urban To ameliorate the excessive reliance on Center renewal. community-led urban renewal with plenty of households involved. The evolution of structural change The overwhelming tasks were in urban renewal organization is All three jurisdictions have formulated new reallocated with the establishment of diverse. Both Hong Kong and urban renewal strategies with growing scales, new urban renewal organizations, but Remarks Taipei established new entities while the magnitude in Singapore is the the centralized authority in Singapore as counterparts, but Singapore most extensive courtesy of its town-scale enabled them to handle the excessive further consolidated the existing implementation. tasks within the existing structure. organizational structure. SBE 38 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 29-53 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554

Table 1: Comparative Framework of the Urban Renewal Institution

Institutional Analysis and PARTICIPANTS POSITIONS ACTIONS Development (IAD) Framework Components The instituted IAD Components in Governmental The CAPACITY to formulate and Formulated urban renewal PROGRAMMES as ORGANIZATIONS as Urban Renewal Institution impose rules concrete tools mediating agents

A statutory body, but is not regarded as a Corporate and Business Plans Existing Urban Renewal Authority servant or agent of the government. No legitimacy is substantially equipped. Deficient transparency in publicized information

District-based and demand-led Hong Kong An advisory platform for public From pencil redevelopment to district-scale Newly-adopted District Urban Renewal Forum investigation renewal. Spontaneous approach with attention paid to community aspirations. Selective En-bloc Redevelopment Scheme Urban Redevelopment Authority Both are statutory government boards, Existing and Housing and Development the URA closely collaborates with the Mandatory enforcements that streamline the Board (HDB) HDB to revitalize obsolete HDB estates. process of revitalizing HDB flats and estates. Singapore To undertake land planning and the Remaking Our Heartland development of land in Singapore with Newly-adopted consolidated URA & HDB legislated form to support the unceasing Town-scale renewal goal of “an endearing home growth of a centralized authority. and a distinctive global city”. Rights transformation, tax reduction, and A municipal office branch that manages additional building bulk Taipei City Urban Regeneration Existing urban renewal in Taipei without Office sufficient resources. Induce the community and private sector’s voluntary participation. Taipei Government-led Urban Regeneration Non-profit legal foundation, the Taipei Urban Redevelopment Newly-adopted implementer of government-led urban To ameliorate the excessive reliance on Center renewal. community-led urban renewal with plenty of households involved. The evolution of structural change The overwhelming tasks were in urban renewal organization is All three jurisdictions have formulated new reallocated with the establishment of diverse. Both Hong Kong and urban renewal strategies with growing scales, new urban renewal organizations, but Remarks Taipei established new entities while the magnitude in Singapore is the the centralized authority in Singapore as counterparts, but Singapore most extensive courtesy of its town-scale enabled them to handle the excessive further consolidated the existing implementation. tasks within the existing structure. organizational structure. SBE 39 Evolution of the Urban Renewal Institution in the Asian Context: A Comparison between Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei

Urban Renewal in Hong Kong the information that is listed in the Corporate Plan in greater detail for The URA was established under the implementation in each of the years Urban Renewal Authority Ordinance following its initial year. Neither the (URAO) as a statutory body. It is Corporate nor Business Plan would be currently in charge of urban renewal in revealed to the public due to the average Hong Kong. Before its inauguration, project’s commercial sensitivity on the urban renewal was handled by the official ground that making public the LDC, which the URA replaced in Corporate Plan “will not be in the public 2001 to solve the LDC’s weaknesses: interest” (Hong Kong Development ineffectiveness in multiple ownership Bureau 2002). Only during the formal integration, defectiveness in rehousing initiation stage of a renewal project assistance, feebleness in authority, would the URA disclose its profile in an and insufficiency in manpower and issue of the Gazette – after allowing a resources for urban renewal (Adams period of at least two months after the & Hastings 2001). Even though the project’s commencement. Following government specifically legislated the public disclosure, the URA would the Ordinance to endow the duty open negotiations to acquire the land and authority for urban renewal with through agreement with property the URA, the URAO’s Section 3: owners. In case it fails to successfully Establishment of Authority stipulates acquire the land, the URA could apply that the URA “shall not be regarded as to the Secretary for Development to a servant or agent of the Government recommend that the Chief Executive in or as enjoying any status, immunity Council execute the resumption of land. or privilege of the Government”. The The URA would then cooperate with the URA in practice lacks the decisive private sector to build a joint venture legal power to handle urban renewal partnership or, alternatively, take action affairs by itself. Rather, it has to by itself to finish the redevelopment and acquire permission from the relevant initiate the subsequent property sales. government departments before it could make decisions. An urban renewal strategy serves as a guideline when the URA drafts a five- According to the URAO, for each year Corporate Plan (Hong Kong project the URA should submit Development Bureau 2011). The a Corporate and Business Plan Hong Kong Government issues a set to the Financial Secretary for his of documents to URA in the form approval. The Corporate Plan covers of annexes so that the latter could development proposals, awaited review its urban renewal strategy. The projects, commencement dates, documents elaborate on the planning and a financial plan for a five-year parameters, financial guidelines, period. The Business Plan explicates and detailed plans for the 225 listed SBE 40 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 29-53 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554 redevelopment projects, concept plans of deficits since its commencement for the nine targeted areas, and, most (Hong Kong Legislative Council importantly, the sequence of those Panel on Development 2016). projects. Again, those documents Also, the government expected it to would be not be initially publicised establish a self-financing urban renewal (Hong Kong Development Bureau operation by recruiting the private 2010) and stakeholders in the sector (Hong Kong Development community would only be informed Bureau 2010), which the URA itself after the URA publishes the project’s advocated as a long-term objective details in the Gazette. Given the (Hong Kong Development Bureau anxieties in Hong Kong’s intense real 2011). However, the URA has been estate market, such a policy decision, keen to enlarge the scale of its renewal which notably lacks information projects for greater community benefits, transparency, may be regarded as which inevitably requires extra reasonable for stabilizing the housing resources. Hence, it faces a dilemma. market and diluting latent difficulties Given these financial constraints and in land assembly (Hui, Wong, & Wan ambitions, urban renewal in Hong 2008). Yet, such an approach requires Kong has been criticized by those with the community to yield to a top-down an overwhelming inclination to exploit urban renewal process. Hong Kong, the city’s development potential and as a jurisdiction characterized by high infringe on private property rights (Lai asset mobility and international capital et al. 2018). In brief, when the URA pursuit, vividly exemplifies how the has to consider the profit margin and drive to globalization has eclipsed ability of each project to sustain itself, social concerns over urban renewal a market-led urban renewal approach (Lai, Chau, & Cheung 2018). becomes the essence of its existence.

Concerning the financial constraints, Changes in Hong Kong Urban the government offered the URA a Renewal in Recent Decades series of measures to alleviate the impediments that the former LDC The URA undertook a review of experienced. These included a HK$10 the rationality and effectiveness of billion (~US$1.2 billion) capital urban renewal through two years injection for its inception, waivers on of consultation with professionals, land premiums, and loans to mitigate academics, and a broad public its financial burden. But even these investigation. The results were financial relief measures were still further translated into a revised urban insufficient for the URA to achieve renewal strategy in 2011. Under the negotiated acceptances (Hastings modified strategy, the URA would & Adams 2005). Meanwhile, the establish a district urban renewal forum URA has suffered from several years (DURF) as an advisory platform for SBE 41 Evolution of the Urban Renewal Institution in the Asian Context: A Comparison between Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei

each district targeted for renewal. in URAO regarding compensation, re- Appointed by the government, housing, and ownership acquisition DURF comprises members drawn (URA 2017). On the other hand, a from professionals, Area Committee district-based renewal approach was members, NGOs, business associations introduced to reverse the prevalent in each district, URA members, and ‘pencil’ developments (so named government representatives (Hong because of their building form or Kong Development Bureau 2011). shape), which are unable to generate The Planning Department agreed to any community benefit to their district provide DURF with secretariat and in terms of effective land use. Urban professional support. The Urban renewal is so constrained by the Renewal Trust Fund offered financial complexity of ownership integration assistance to commence renewal studies that most projects in Hong Kong could for informative advice, monitor the only be sporadically implemented on progress of project developments, and a small scale (Hui et al. 2008). As foster more public engagement as an countermeasures, the URA implemented educational measure (Hong Kong three new projects in Kowloon City District Urban Renewal Forum 2011). under a novel, district-based renewal approach in 2016 (URA 2016). These Apart from the institutional collaborative projects involved, in modification, the URA recently total, 11,900 square metres of floor area embarked on several mutually with 1,440 participating households. complementary renewal strategies. The rejuvenation plan comprised Demand-led redevelopment is a newly- an effective road network with an formulated programme that responds integrated underground communal to requests from interested property car park, which was an elegant and owners to redevelop their buildings practical solution that maintained the so that the projects are initiated by the street fronts and shops along with community rather than unilaterally covered footpaths. waiting for the URA’s announcement. Moreover, this voluntary approach In summary, several newly- reduces the transaction cost within the introduced urban renewal strategies ownership resumption. The programme could be perceived as counterparts was launched in 2011 and the latest to a conventional top-down renewal prerequisite for qualified applications approach. First, the establishment of states that the projects should have DURF reflects the URA’s “People First, the consent of at least 80% of the District-based, Public Participatory” affected owners on no less than 700 approach and articulates their square metres of sites. The accepted attention to community aspirations to projects would be executed under the a greater extent. Second, a demand- identical renewal process formulated led redevelopment programme entitles SBE 42 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 29-53 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554 the community to be part of the urban design. As a department that organizes renewal process with identical legal Singapore’s holistic urban plan, the procedures to those of the URA. URA cooperates with the HDB, whose Third, a district-based approach major function is to build and manage indicates the URA’s resolve to cope HDB flats (Chew 2009), to revitalize with the complexities of ownership obsolete HDB estates. and financial risks that may arise from larger projects. Excessive profit- There are 1.3 million residential based and uncoordinated renewal units in Singapore, of which one approaches dilute the chance to realize million are HDB flats. These provide sustainability in the urban environment accommodation to over 80% of (Chan & Lee 2008, Lee & Chan Singapore’s population (HDB 2017c). 2008), whereas a district-based Owing to the massive housing stock approach could be a remedy for the it manages, the HDB exerts major aforesaid disequilibrium. influence in Singapore’s urban renewal. Inaugurated in 1995, its Selective En- Urban Renewal in Singapore bloc Redevelopment Scheme (SERS) is the redevelopment programme for Both the HDB and URA are statutory tackling dilapidated HDB flats. The bodies instituted under the Singaporean HDB will first announce which HDB Government’s Ministry of National blocks have been chosen for SERS, Development (MND), which is the after which a series of measures will be department responsible for national implemented including exhibiting the land use and planning. Under the new developments, assessing the value supervision of the MND, the URA of selected flats, investigating affected cooperated with other relevant residents’ opinions, and compensating departments to formulate the concept them for repossessing their properties. plan, which drew up a comprehensive All affected residents are entitled to blueprint for Singapore’s land use and choose new flats in nearby precincts to transportation for the next 40-50 years allow them to maintain their community with routine reviews every ten years ties. Such a sound re-housing system, (Singapore Urban Redevelopment accompanied by the SERS, has Authority 2018). The concept plan minimised any dissatisfaction that would be further translated into a might have arisen from splitting up master plan to elaborate on the details established community ties (Yung et al. of permissible land use and density 2016). The URA and HDB are entitled to guide medium-term developments to execute SERS which the affected in Singapore. Besides, the URA is HDB residents must obey. Even though also in charge of land use planning, appeal channels are provided under development control, land sales, Land Acquisition Act Section 23, conservation, and urban planning and affected residents and interested parties SBE 43 Evolution of the Urban Renewal Institution in the Asian Context: A Comparison between Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei

can only appeal against the level of a national conservation authority, and compensation (Zhang 2004, p.188). further clarified its role as a national land planning authority, which was Urban renewal in Singapore is usually formally recognized in an amended implemented by the joint efforts of the URA Act in 2003. This amendment, URA and HDB with strong government which formulated the URA’s functions support. Only those subordinate and duties, is intended “to undertake upgrading programmes that concentrate land planning and to manage and on minor improvements and control the development of land in maintenance are involved in a polling Singapore” (“Urban Redevelopment system, which requires at least 75% of Authority Act” 1989) and is the latest an affected building block’s eligible modification of the URA system. Yet Singapore citizen households voting the URA’s unceasing growth continues in favour of the programme (HDB and remains on the same trajectory from 2017d), but the core of redevelopment the very beginning, while gradually programme, SERS, must be followed evolving into a sturdy planning statutory by affected HDB residents. The board with centralized authority. authorized top-down, compulsory redevelopment programme streamlines The scope and aspirations of urban the process of revitalizing HDB flats renewal in Singapore keep growing as and estates, which further enables the well. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong government to transform the affected unveiled “Remaking Our Heartland” precinct, integrating it with the overall (ROH) during a National Day Rally urban planning framework desired by in 2007 in response to emerging the Singapore government. demands of the city-state’s changing demographics. The HDB towns Change in the Recent Decades in are the targets for the HDB’s ROH Singapore Urban Renewal programme, which was formulated based on demographic investigations The nascent division of the URA is to gather residents’ opinions and the Urban Renewal Unit, which was put more measures into practice. instituted as part of the HDB in 1964. Instruments range from enhanced After several reorganizations starting in greenery, increased connectivity 1974, the URA became independent of by interconnected corridors and the HDB and has gone on to fulfill its promenades, new MRT stations to role as a greater statutory government increase mobility, more community board supervised by the MND. The facilities, and new commercial URA has gradually assumed control developments like precinct markets of urban planning in recent decades and multi-function shopping malls. self-restructured, merged with other Three batches of ROH projects have departments, expanded its function as been unveiled since its launch and SBE 44 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 29-53 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554 public consultations and exhibitions The Taipei City Government set up the followed the announcement of ROH Taipei City Urban Regeneration Fund projects for tailoring a delicate renewal in 2006 to bear the expenses related strategy. The ROH programme is a 20- to urban renewal affairs. However, 30 years long-term plan to transform the government has distributed only HDB towns and estates into vibrant US$4.2 million to urban renewal living environments. It has already affairs since the fund’s establishment incorporated nine of Singapore’s 23 (Taipei City Urban Regeneration HDB towns into this aspiring strategy Office 2018), which is far from enough and benefited about 1.3 million to revitalize privately-owned urban residents (HDB 2017b). deteriorated areas efficiently. The scarce resources impede municipal Urban Renewal in Taipei governments from initiating renewal projects. Instead, urban renewal in In Taiwan’s Central Government, the Taiwan is pushed by tax reduction and Construction and Planning Agency additional building bulk. These two Ministry of the Interior has appointed incentives induce the participation the Urban Redevelopments Team to of the community and private sector, manage the island’s urban renewal, while rights transformation decides but it is essentially responsible for the benefit distribution among the the general goals and decisions involved stakeholders. The Taipei City of redevelopment plans, progress Government would first investigate and supervision, consultations, inquiries, analyse the declined regions and further and coordination. The substantial designate the ‘renewal areas’ based on organization that goes into handling their necessity of rectification. The urban renewal affairs is distributed owners of the deteriorated buildings among municipal governments so located in the renewal areas are entitled that each city has a degree of freedom to initiate urban renewal plans with to practice its own urban renewal. prerequisite majority consensuses, Similarly, the Urban Renewal Act is the although the projects could be principal law at the central government initiated by the owners themselves level that oversees the principle of or entrusted to private sector agents urban renewal for all of Taiwan. The under the supervision of the Urban municipal governments legislate the Renewal Committee. The Taipei City regulations at the city level to further Government would grant tax reductions translate the details to suit local to those urban renewal projects to circumstances. For example, the Taipei reduce the owner’s financial burden on City Urban Regeneration Office (URO) redevelopment, and permit a different is the statutory government board that amount of additional building bulk answers to Taipei City’s Department to reward projects according to their of Urban Development to manage the proposed designs. This would focus city’s urban renewal matters. SBE 45 Evolution of the Urban Renewal Institution in the Asian Context: A Comparison between Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei

on the potential advantages that a is the prevalent impetus for urban project contributes to its neighbourhood renewal in Taipei. The Taipei City or environment. Ideally, a renewal Government offers numerous incentives project would produce additional to attract community involvement, so profits from the sale of those additional as to enable urban renewal from the floor areas, thereby benefiting the bottom-up. The process of renewal owners and entrusted private sector and requires an incremental percentage acting as both an incentive to attract of majority consent at each stage to their participation and leverage to ensure that most engaged stakeholders balance the redevelopment costs (Hui are satisfied with both the process and et al. 2008). Rights transformation redevelopment design of a project. A is the principle of distributing the consensus-based, community-led urban profits gained after redevelopment. It renewal operation offers opportunities depends on the property value of each to communities to shape their living stakeholder involved in the renewal environments and empowers them to process, each of which would receive have a substantial influence on the cities its own proportional allocation. in which they live (Chan & Lee 2008).

An agreement between the community Changes in Recent Decades in Taipei’s and entrusted developer has to be Urban Renewal established in order to entitle the developer to redevelop the community- The Taipei City Government established owned land. Such agreement is the Taipei Urban Redevelopment Center achieved after both at least 80% of the (URC) as a non-profit legal foundation eligible community and the entrusted in 2012. Requiring financial support developer are satisfied with the from the Taipei City Government, the proposed redevelopment design and the original objective of the URC was distribution of profit or expenditure. to offer professional assistance on The community can also redevelop urban renewal to communities and this their properties on their own under the was subsequently transformed into same urban renewal rule to acquire an implementation of government- additional building bulk as bonus, and led urban renewal along with the the community thus has to be capable promulgation of government-led of mobilizing enough funding and Urban Regeneration Implementation professionals to complete the project. Guidelines. In 2016, there were ten In this regard, the majority of the pilot, government-led projects that renewal cases in Taipei have thus been were implemented or facilitated by the enabled by the cooperation between URC and served as pioneers for the communities and private developers. government strategy.

This spontaneous cooperation between The spontaneous community and the community and private sectors SBE 46 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 29-53 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554 private sector-led urban renewal government-led urban renewal for process, which began in 1998, has larger community benefits. alleviated the Taipei City Government’s financial burden, but several drawbacks The newly-legislated Guideline have appeared. There has been mutual indicates that the Taipei City distrust between the community and Government has embraced the counter- private sector, which has sometimes urban renewal approach instead of its hindered progress. The magnitude conventional passive attitude. The of the renewal projects has usually recently-announced ten government- been small and sporadic and most of led urban renewal projects involved them have concentrated on potentially an aggregate area of 978,000 square lucrative areas rather than on declining metres (Taipei Urban Regeneration older areas that need them the most Center 2016a) with comprehensive because of the profit motive (Taipei plans set after dozens of professional Urban Regeneration Center 2016b). consultations, public exhibitions, To ameliorate the excessive reliance and hearings. Each government- on community-led urban renewal, the led project is equipped with its own Taipei City Government legislated a specific renewal strategy for resilience, “Government-Led Urban Regeneration transportation, historical preservation, Implementation Guideline” in March or infrastructure improvement. 2016 as an innovative approach to cope Moreover, this programme is expected with the above issues. The Taipei City to help 3,800 households revitalize their Government examined the deteriorated accommodation, offer 4,100 public areas and selected certain pilot districts housing units, and elicit US$7.95 billion before applying this urban renewal of investment from the government, approach. Similar to the community community, and private sector (Taipei and private sector-led urban renewal, City Government 2016). the process began with an ownership integration and consensus among the DISCUSSION OF THE majority of owners. The Taipei City RECENT EVOLUTION OF Government can implement the projects THE URBAN RENEWAL by itself or entrust it to qualified private INSTITUTION sector players and proceed with rights transformation afterward. To facilitate Hong Kong the process, the government-led projects are entitled to draw from the URA staff are not recognized as public Taipei City Urban Regeneration Fund servants and, thus, lack legitimacy in as a mortgage. Those districts that some observers’ eyes. While the URA hold aggregated site areas amounting to is expected to be self-sufficient in its 2,000 square metres or are occupied by urban renewal operations, it has no over 100 households would be regarded alternative but to adopt a top-down as priority targets for implementing SBE 47 Evolution of the Urban Renewal Institution in the Asian Context: A Comparison between Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei

approach with insufficient transparency the city a thriving, lively environment as in publicized information. It is difficult part of the holistic Concept and Master for communities not to regard the Plan, from the quantity of housing to URA as a utilitarian body that strives quality of life, through an effectual for profits rather than appreciate it as authority (Chew 2009). a caregiver that prioritizes community benefits. Unremittingly, the enlarged scope of urban renewal grows from single A deficiency of financial resources, buildings to neighbourhood precincts weak authority, and an incapability of and further achieves the town scale in community consensus building are all ROH programme (Singapore Ministry factors that have impeded the effective of National Development 2017). More implementation of urban renewal in vigorously, the denotation of urban Hong Kong. During its recent adoption renewal in Singapore is more than an of its new approaches, the URA instrument to fine-tune rundown areas. executed several countermeasures in Rather, the government has exerted a its modified urban renewal strategy in farsighted approach to achieve “An response to the abovementioned issues. Endearing Home and a Distinctive Such a transformation implied that Global City” (Singapore Ministry it has gradually shifted from being a of National Development 2018). utilitarian to a facilitator that echoes the The authority of the HDB and URA aspirations of affected residents. to implement a top-down approach grows continuously. Currently, they Singapore are manifesting their place-marketing advocacy to reinforce Singapore’s During the 1960s, at the height of regional position as a world city Singapore’s housing crisis, only 9% and protagonist (Miles & Paddison of its population lived in government 2005). The government’s ambition of flats, while an enormous number of achieving global city status is vividly people still lived in dilapidated slums. demonstrated. But now HDB flats house over 80% of its population. Possessing strong Taipei government support in the legislated form of political and financial Without involving itself in urban commitments (HDB 2017a), the renewal, the Taipei City Government continually expanding aspirations of delegated the major task of urban the HDB and URA demonstrate their renewal to the community and private maturity in addressing the city-state’s sector to complete the projects through urban issues. The government’s initial joint collaboration. The Taipei City objective was to provide adequate Government acts as a facilitator by and affordable public housing to its offering incentives, as a coordinator residents. This was followed by offering by mediating the inevitable disputes SBE 48 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 29-53 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554 between the community and private of government’ for the delivery of sector, and an examiner to ensure that effective regeneration strategies. The the renewal projects will be of a certain only conclusion that can be drawn quality and value to the affected areas. from the cases reviewed is that such a structure is a chimera” (Couch, Fraser, The establishment of the Taipei Urban & Percy 2003, p.198). Consequently, Redevelopment Center showed that to confront a continually changing urban renewal in Taipei is no longer urban environment, stakeholders must engineered from one direction only, appreciate the value of learning from but at every level. This approach also each other, which has substantially implies that the Taipei City Government increased, so comparative and mutual has developed a more assertive posture studies become more relevant. towards redevelopment after years of ignoring it. It has now decided to take up the challenge of serving as a ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS motivated implementer, which was tailor-made for it a long time ago. The authors want to express their gratitude to the Research Institute for Sustainable Urban Development of The CONCLUSION Hong Kong Polytechnic University for funding this study, and The Department This paper studied and compared the of Architecture of National Taiwan recent evolution of urban renewal University of Science and Technology institutions in Hong Kong, Singapore, for supporting this research project. and Taipei as three competitive Asian cities. The observations derived from this comparison were supported by REFERENCES the theoretical framework the paper established. Simultaneously, the utility Adams D & Hastings EM (2001), of this comparative framework was “Urban Renewal in Hong Kong: demonstrated by a comparison of the Transition from Development three cities. The authors observed Corporation to Renewal Authority,” that not only were their intrinsic urban Land Use Policy, 18:3, 245-258. renewal institutions largely distinct from each other, the directions of their Carmon N (1999), “Three Generations institutional evolution diverged greatly, of Urban Renewal Policies: Analysis which disclosed that an appreciation and Policy Implications,” Geoforum, for an optimal urban renewal became 30:2, 145-158. vaguer. Each city’s adoption of an Cento Bull A, & Jones B (2006), evolving urban renewal institution “Governance and Social Capital in echoed the argument that, “There has Urban Regeneration: A Comparison been a search for the ‘ideal structure SBE 49 Evolution of the Urban Renewal Institution in the Asian Context: A Comparison between Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei

between Bristol and Naples,” Urban Hastings E & Adams D (2005), Studies, 43:4, 767-786. “Facilitating Urban Renewal: Changing Institutional Arrangements and Land Chan EHW & Lee GKL (2008), Assembly in Hong Kong,” Property “Critical Factors for Improving Social Management, 23:2, 110-121. Sustainability of Urban Renewal Projects,” Social Indicators Research, Ho DCW, Yau Y, Poon SW, & Liusman 85:2, 243-256. E (2012), “Achieving Sustainable Urban Renewal in Hong Kong: Strategy Chan EHW & Lee GKL (2008), for Dilapidation Assessment of High “Contribution of Urban Design to Rises,” Journal of Urban Planning and Economic Sustainability of Urban Development, 138:2, 153-165. Renewal Projects in Hong Kong,” Sustainable Development, 16:6, 353- Hong Kong Development Bureau 364. (2002), “LCQ10: Acquisition of Premises for Redevelopment by URA,” Chew V (2009), “Housing and Accessed on 8 August 2018 at https:// Development Board,” Accessed on www.devb.gov.hk/en/publications_ 8 August 2018 at http://eresources. and_press_releases/press/index_ nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/ id_1724.html. SIP_1589_2009-10-26.html. Hong Kong Development Bureau Couch C, Fraser C, & Percy S (2003), (2010), “Urban Renewal Strategy,” Urban Regeneration in Europe. Oxford. Accessed on 8 August 2018 at http:// Malden, MA: Oxford. Malden, MA: www.devb.gov.hk/en/issues_in_focus/ Blackwell Science. urban_renewal_strategy/.

Dekker K & Varady DP (2011), “A Hong Kong Development Bureau Comparison of Dutch and US Public (2011), “Urban Renewal Strategy,” Housing Regeneration Planning: The Accessed on 8 August 2018 at https:// Similarity Grows?” Urban Research & www.ura.org.hk/f/page/1869/URS_ Practice, 4:2, 123-152. eng_2011.pdf.

DiGaetano A & Strom E (2003), Hong Kong District Urban Renewal “Comparative Urban Governance: An Forum (2011), “About Us,” Accessed Integrated Approach,” Urban Affairs on 8 August 2018 at http://www.durf. Review, 38:3, 356-395. org.hk/main/en/index.php.

Goldsmith M (1992), “Local Hong Kong Legislative Council Panel Government,” Urban Studies, 29:3-4, on Development (2016), “Work of the 393-410. Urban Renewal Authority,” Accessed on 8 August 2018 at http://www.legco. SBE 50 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 29-53 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554 gov.hk/yr15-16/english/panels/dev/ Lee GKL & Chan EHW (2008), papers/dev20160621cb1-1034-1-e.pdf. “Factors Affecting Urban Renewal in High-Density City: Case Study of Hong Hong Kong Urban Renewal Authority Kong,” Journal of Urban Planning and (2016), “URA Adopts Holistic, District- Development, 134:3, 140-148. based Approach in Commencing Three New Projects in Kowloon City,” Miles S & Paddison R (2005), Accessed on 8 August 2018 at http:// “Introduction: The Rise and Rise of www.ura.org.hk/en/media/press- Culture-led Urban Regeneration,” release/2016/20160603.aspx. Urban Studies, 42:5-6, 833-839.

Hong Kong Urban Renewal Authority Ng MK (1999), “Political Economy (2017), “URA as Implementer,” and Urban Planning: A Comparative Accessed on 8 August 2018 at Study of Hong Kong, Singapore and http://www.ura.org.hk/en/schemes- Taiwan (0305-9006),” Accessed and-policies/redevelopment/ura- on 8 August 2018 at http://www. implemented-projects/demand-led. sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/ aspx. S0305900698000270.

Hui ECM, Wong JTY, & Wan JKM North DC (1990), Institutions, (2008), “A Review of the Effectiveness Institutional Change, and Economic of Urban Renewal in Hong Kong,” Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge Property Management, 26:1, 25-42. University Press.

Hyra DS (2012), “Conceptualizing Ostrom E (2005), Understanding the New Urban Renewal: Comparing Institutional Diversity. Princeton, NJ: the Past to the Present,” Urban Affairs Princeton University Press. Review, 48:4, 498-527. Peck J (2014), “Cities beyond IMD World Competitiveness Center Compare?” Regional Studies, 49:1, (2017), “IMD World Competitiveness 160-182. Ranking 2017,” Accessed on 8 August 2018 at https://www.imd.org/ Simpson F & Chapman M (1999), globalassets/wcc/docs/release-2017/ “Comparison of Urban Governance and wcy-2017-vs-2016---final.pdf. Planning Policy: East Looking West,” Cities, 16:5, 353-364. Lai LWC, Chau KW, & Cheung PACW (2018), “Urban Renewal and Singapore Housing & Development Redevelopment: Social Justice and Board (2017a), “HDB History and Property Rights with Reference to Hong Towns,” Accessed on 8 August 2018 Kong’s Constitutional Capitalism,” at https://www.hdb.gov.sg/cs/infoweb/ Cities, 74, 240-248. about-us/history. SBE 51 Evolution of the Urban Renewal Institution in the Asian Context: A Comparison between Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei

Singapore Housing & Development Planning/Our-Planning-Process/Long- Board (2017b), “HDB Towns, Your Term-Planning. Home,” Accessed on 8 August 2018 at https://www.hdb.gov.sg/cs/infoweb/ Taipei City Government (2016), “The about-us/history/hdb-towns-your- Era of Government-led Regeneration,” home&rendermode=preview. Accessed on 8 August 2018 at http://www.gov.taipei/ct.asp?xItem= Singapore Housing & Development 154135009&ctNode=5158&mp= Board (2017c), “Public Housing - A 100001. Singapore Icon,” Accessed on 8 August 2018 at https://www.hdb.gov.sg/cs/ Taipei City Urban Regeneration Office infoweb/about-us/our-role/public- (2018), “Budget,” Accessed on 8 housing--a-singapore-icon. August 2018 at https://uro.gov.taipei/ cp.aspx?n=1DB8B0B52F1EAD3A&s= Singapore Housing & Development 38193AE437FF256B. Board (2017d), “SERS and Upgrading Programmes,” Accessed on 8 August Taipei Urban Regeneration Center 2018 at http://www.hdb.gov.sg/cs/ (2016a), “Project List,” Accessed on 8 infoweb/residential/living-in-an-hdb- August 2018 at http://www.turc.org.tw/ flat/sers-and-upgrading-programmes. tw/modules/application/.

Singapore Ministry of National Taipei Urban Regeneration Center Development (2017), “Speech by (2016b), “Vision,” Accessed on 8 Minister Lawrence Wong at the Launch August 2018 at http://www.turc.org.tw/ of Remaking our Heartland Exhibition tw/modules/pages/vision. for Woodlands,” Accessed on 8 August 2018 at https://www.mnd.gov.sg/ Urban Redevelopment Authority Act newsroom/speeches/view/speech-by- (1989). minister-lawrence-wong-at-the-launch- Uršič M & Križnik B (2012), of-remaking-our-heartland-exhibition- “Comparing Urban Renewal in for-woodlands. Barcelona and Seoul—Urban Singapore Ministry of National Management in Conditions of Development (2018), “Introduction,” Competition Among Global Cities,” Accessed on 8 August 2018 at Asia Europe Journal, 10:1, 21-39. https://www.mnd.gov.sg/about-us/ Verhage R (2005a), “Renewing Urban introduction. Renewal in France, the UK and the Singapore Urban Redevelopment Netherlands: Introduction,” Journal of Authority (2018), “Long-Term Housing and the Built Environment, Planning,” Accessed on 8 August 2018 20:3, 215-227. at https://www.ura.gov.sg/Corporate/ Verhage R (2005b), “Towards a SBE 52 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 29-53 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554

Territorialized Approach to Urban Renewal: A Comparison of Policies in France and the Netherlands,” International Planning Studies, 10:2, 129-143.

Yeoh BSA (2005), “The Global Cultural City? Spatial Imagineering and Politics in the (Multi)cultural Marketplaces of South-east Asia,” Urban Studies, 42:5- 6, 945-958.

Yung EHK, Conejos S, & Chan EHW (2016), “Public Open Spaces Planning for the Elderly: The Case of Dense Urban Renewal Districts in Hong Kong,” Land Use Policy, 59, 1-11.

Zhang G (2004), Governing Urban Regeneration: A Comparative Study of Hong Kong, Singapore and Taipei. Unpublished PhD Thesis in the University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong). Retrieved from http://hub. hku.hk/handle/10722/134029.

SBE 53 Dr. Edward George Pryor MBE Lawrence W C Lai*

“Honest, daring and resolute”1

“A pioneer in Hong Kong’s strategic planning”2

To me, the greatest local town planner in Hong Kong government history was Dr. Edward George Pryor (12 March 1938 - 17 September 2018). The conferment of a MBE to him in January 1997 shows the importance of his contribution to town planning. To his colleagues and friends, he was called Ted. Figure 1 is a photo taken on 7 June 1997 of government town planners at or above the rank of Assistant Director with Dr. Pryor in the limelight. Figure 2 is a photo taken by Y K Tan in the 1990s showing Dr. Pryor in a DC 10 plane used by the NGO Orbis.

Figure 1

* Professor, Department of Real Estate and Construction, University of Hong Kong, R.P.P., F.R.I.C.S., F.H.K.I.S., M.H.K.I.P., M.A.P.I. Email: [email protected] 1 Per a retired Chief Town Planner. 2 Per another Chief Town Planner SBE 54 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 54-60 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554

Figure 2

This recollection of Ted is informed In writing this reminiscence, I have by my encounter with him as a town tried my best to remove expressions planner seconded to the Strategic which Ted would not have approved of Planning Unit (SPU), Lands and Works were he to hear them. Branch, from the Buildings and Lands Department (BLD) from 1987 to 1989. During this period, I was secretary Prior to this posting, I worked in the to the Association of Local Town Sub-Regional Planning section, Town Planning Officers (ALTPO) the purpose Planning Office in BLD.3 of which was to promote localization in the shortest possible time to allow 3 When I returned to the Sub-regional Planning for promotion of local Chinese town section of the Town Planning Office after a planners to higher ranks. I have never honeymoon trip to Europe in 1987. It was then mentioned this to him and Dr. Pryor on the third floor of the Murray Building and I found my office bay empty and belongings never asked me anything about this all gone. I was wondering what had happened association. when the steno typist of the Chief Town Planner handed me a bearer memo for my transfer to “SPU upstairs”. The SPU office was on the top floor of Murray Building and one A LOCAL OFFICER had to walk up one more storey after reaching the highest storey the lift served. The SPU Ted was a New Zealander but he was office was on one side and the Town Planning Board conference room on the other side of this strange top floor. It had no windows! I was soon told that our “boss” was Dr. Edward G. nickname in Cantonese “son of god” (神仔). Pryor, Government Town Planner. Colleagues The “god” was Mr. AF Meyers, who retired as in SPU called him “Ted” rather than his Principal Government Town Planner in 1973. SBE 55 Dr. Edward George Pryor MBE

not an “expatriate” officer. From 1965 AN EFFICIENT OFFICER to 1999,4 when he retired, he served the government on “local pensionable He was said to be a “workaholic” terms” of service, which insulated him probably because he was an example of from the localization policy set out in efficiency and productivity. He came to 5 during the mid-1980s. the office at about 8 am. He finished his daily work at 5 pm sharp. He did not sit His departure from this world in on files. Nor did he require junior staff September 2018, just when the HKSAR to stay behind in the office. Actually, government announced a policy of once someone had finished his or her constructing artificial islands, was to “assignments” of the day, he or she those who know him by contact (and could be excused from office. Ted those who will know him by research) trusted his staff. a signal memento of his contribution to strategic planning in Hong Kong by reclamation. A PRODUCTIVE OFFICER

Those within the bureaucracy, who He made an important contribution to were unable to share the joy of his the Colony Outline Plan6; the ten-year achievements, which were always rolling Public Housing Development described as “corporate” rather than Programme (PHDP); Metroplan; and individual, represented Ted as a the Port and Airport Development workaholic with no sympathy for Strategy (PADS). subordinates. Other than this widely circulated and malicious remark, These planning feats were no jokes against which I shall testify below, he or “white elephants”, as post-colonial was hard to find fault with. Hong Kong history has revealed. They shaped the physical morphology of the Ted was lavish in commending good Hong Kong Special Administrative work by his staff and consultants and Region. would not hesitate to write letters of praise of such work. He personally wrote many of the important policy and technical 4 According to government’s Staff List, he was papers for these important planning Planning Officer from 23 October 1965; Acting endeavours, enriching the local Senior Planning Officer from 11 December 7 1967 to 9 April 1969; Senior Planning Officer: planning vocabulary. 23 October 1969 to 31 March 1976; Assistant Director of Housing from 1 April 1976 to 15 July 1980; Government Town Planner: 16 July 1980 to 31 December 1990; and finally 6 The“COP”, later renamed Hong Kong Outline Principal Government Town Planner from 1 Plan (HKOP), which consisted of the first January 1990 to retirement in 1998. versions of what became the Hong Kong 5 As a move to pave the way to the “handover”, Planning Standards and Guidelines (HKPSG). something that has not been rigorously 7 See Lai and Baker (2014). SBE attempted in the academia. 56 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 54-60 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554

He was a spatially highly sensitive most, he said, “this is politics”, then he person and knew the geography of moved onto planning work. Nor would Hong Kong very well. While many he make any public statement which remember him as a prescient anticipator might make someone feel small. of strategic reclamation, he was keen to implement proposals for “urban fringe His personal secretary in SPU, Jenny, parks”, as well planned and managed told me that when he heard that a fringes of country parks, and to inject government cleaner’s friend lost his major open spaces into the old urban job, he found a job for him. core by land exchange. When New Zealand suffered from an He was a person who did not advertise earthquake in 2011, he wrote to friends himself, though he followed the norm of by email asking for donations to help using his real name in his literal works the needy and sharing his opinions that appear in planning journals and about earthquakes (as shown in books. A list of such works, unlikely to Appendix 2). be exhaustive, is at Appendix 1.

His doctoral thesis was on urban TED’S IDIOSYNCRASIES renewal, which was further developed into his 1983 book Housing in Hong He wrote more than he spoke. “This Kong. He was the external examiner of is hair splitting” and “at the end of the doctoral theses of at least two local the day” were his frequently used town planners known personally to me. expressions.

Ted’s works, unlike those fashionable He did not like putting on a town plan today, were written in unpretentious or sketch a north sign that took the language at a time when there was no shape of a sharp arrow but a very flat ritualistic academic need to decorate one, as shown in Figure 3, an excerpt planning research with high sounding from a Metroplan report. He favoured theories or paradigms. They are orange and other bright colours in map essential reading for serious research on presentation. planning in Hong Kong as they show Ted liked to wear a brown suit and was clearly what a senior and influential fond of painting and aeroplanes. It is government planner thought about thanks to Ted’s enthusiasm that we have housing and planning for Hong Kong. the replica Farman biplane (a replica of the first aeroplane to operate in Hong A CHARITABLE PERSON Kong) hanging up at the Chek Lap Kok airport (Figure 4). I never heard him said anything bad or wrong behind anyone’s back. At SBE 57 Dr. Edward George Pryor MBE

an Institutional Memory Inquiry of Forward Planning for Land Production by Reclamation,” Land Use Policy 82, 796-806.

APPENDIX 1: SOME PUBLICATIONS OF DR. E.G. Pryor

(Note: a complete bio will appear in a paper in the Journal of the Hong Kong Figure 3 Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch, “Housing and planning in Hong Kong and the work of Edward George Pryor, MBE” by the author and Stephen N.G. Davies.”)

Pryor, Edward George. “The squatters of Hong Kong”, Royal Australian Planning Institute Journal 4.3, 1966, pp.61-64.

Pryor, Edward George. “An assessment of the need and scope for urban renewal Figure 4 in Hong Kong”, Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. University of Hong Kong, 1971.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Pryor, Edward George. “The delineation of blighted areas in urban Hong Kong.” I am grateful to Prof. Stephen N.G. In Denis John. Dwyer ed., Asian Davies for his advice and help in Urbanization: A Hong Kong Casebook compiling Appendix 1. Vol. 1. Hong Kong University Press, (1971): pp.70 - 88. https://www.jstor. REFERENCES org/stable/j.ctt2jc115 Pryor, Edward George. “A historical Lai LWC and Baker M (2014), “The review of housing conditions in Hong Final Colonial Regional Plan that Kong.” Journal of the Hong Kong Lingers on: Hong Kong’s Metroplan”, Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Habitat International 44, 216-228. (1972): pp.89-129.

Lai LWC, Chau KW and Lorne FT Pryor, Edward George. “Workshops (2019), ““Forgetting by not Doing”: SBE 58 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 54-60 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554 in domestic premises: A Hong Kong Pryor, Edward George. “An overview case study”, Pacific Viewpoint 13, no.2 of territorial development strategy (1972), pp. 169-186. studies in Hong Kong.” Australian Planner 24, no. 2 (1986): pp.5-14. Pryor, Edward George. “The great plague of Hong Kong.” Journal of the Pryor, Edward George. “Land use— Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic transport strategy formulation in Hong Society (1975): pp.61-70. Kong: The application of optimization techniques”, Land Use Policy 4, no. 3 Pryor, Edward George. “Environmental (1987): pp.257-279. quality and housing policy in Hong Kong” Pacific Viewpoint 16, no.2 Pryor, Edward George. “The (1975): pp.195-206. underground city: An introductory statement”, in A.W. Malone & P.G.D. Pryor, Edward George. “Redeveloping Whiteside (eds), Proceedings of the public housing in Hong Kong.” Ekistics Seminar Rock Cavern - Hong Kong, (1977): 96-100. London: The Institution of Mining and Pryor, Edward George. “Redevelopment Metallurgy, 1989, pp. 23-34. and new towns in Hong Kong. In Pryor, Edward George and Robb, L.S.K. Wong (Ed.) Housing in Hong B.D. “Metroplan - A framework for Kong: A Multi-disciplinary Study, city growth: Some views on land use/ Hong Kong: Heinemann Educational transport interaction.” Planning and Press, 1978: pp. 266-286. https://core. Development 6, no.2 (1990): pp.46-61. ac.uk/download/pdf/48534713.pdf Pryor, Edward George. Hong Kong’s Pryor, Edward George. “Housing in Port and Airport development strategy: the 1980s ­ A Perspective on Southeast A Foundation for Growth. Government Asian Cities”, Pacific Viewpoint 21, Printer, 1991. no.2 (1980): pp. 116-143. Pryor, Edward George and Pau, Shiu- Pryor, Edward George. Housing in hung. “The growth of the city – A Hong Kong. Oxford University Press, historical review,” in Vittorio Magnago Hong Kong, 1983. Lampugnani, E G Pryor, Shiu-hung Pryor, Edward George. “Squatting, land Pau, Tilman Spengler eds. Hong Kong clearance and urban development in Architecture : the Aesthetics of Density, Hong Kong”, Land Use Policy 1, no.3 New York, NY: Prestel, 1993, pp.87- (1984): 225-242. 110.

Pryor, Edward George. “An overview Pryor, Edward George and Pau, Shiu- of territorial development strategy hung. “The new city emerges” in studies in Hong Kong”, Planning and Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani, E G Development 1. no.1 (1985): pp.?? Pryor, Shiu-hung Pau, Tilman Spengler SBE 59 Dr. Edward George Pryor MBE

eds. Hong Kong Architecture: the Big Cities of China.” Urban Planning Aesthetics of Density, New York, NY: Overseas 1 (2005): 003. http://en.cnki. Prestel, 1993, 111-140. com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTOTAL- GWCG200501003.htm Pryor, Edward George and P. Cookson- Smith. Hong Kong: City of Vision, Pryor, Edward George. Hong Kong: Hong Kong: Hinge Publishing, 1996. City of Vision, Hong Kong: Hinge Publishing, 1996. Pryor, Edward George. “Parallel development of strategic land-use and Kissling, C. and Pryor, E.G. (2009). transport planning: The case of the Revitalisation of the Christchurch Territorial Development Strategy.” Central City. New Zealand Planning Land-use/Transport Planning in Hong Institute Conference, May. Kong: The End of an Era (1998). (There’s an interesting bibliographic Pryor, Edward George. “An Overview list at http://worldcat.org/identities/ on Land and Ecology Planning for lccn-n82139080/)

APPENDIX 2

SBE 60 FIELD TRIP NOTES Post-war Hong Kong Border Security Sites: Wang Lek, Pak Kung Au and Robin’s Nest (Hung Fa Leng)

Y.K. Tan*

ABSTRACT

This short note records the disused post war British defensive facilities found by the author at Wang Lek, Pak Kung Au and Robins’ Nest (Hung Fa Leng) in Hong Kong’s border area.

INTRODUCTION

With a view to stimulate further and better research on and conservation of built heritage significant in Hong Kong history as an international hub, this short note is a continuation of the field notes disused British defensive facilities published in the last issue of Surveying and Built Environment by Tan, Lai and Leung (2018). Discoveries about some Japanese war-time defence structures were also reported. All photos were taken by the authors.

* IT manager, Email: [email protected] SBE 61 Post-war Hong Kong Border Security Sites: Wang Lek, Pak Kung Au and Robin’s Nest (Hung Fa Leng)

WANG LEK site is an underground Observation Post (OP) as can be seen in Figure 8. A post-war British defence site, as Figure 9 shows some building materials shown in Figure 1, was located on of the OP. It was also supported by the 150-metre high hilltop of Wong wooden beams and its sides covered Mau Hang Shan north ridge near by corrugated iron sheets. It was not a Wang Lek. This was the only heavily reinforced concrete structure. fortified hill known to the author along the border with Shenzhen. Figure 2 Figure 10 shows a trench in the shows the strategic importance of the vicinity. It was still covered by site. Shenzhen is on the left and the corrugated iron sheets with L-shaped Kong Shan “MacIntosh Fort” is in the metallic beams supporting the frame. background. This site controlled the The bottom surface was also covered entrance below to the pass into the by corrugated iron sheets – likely for Sha Tau Kok area. The defence site better drainage. The trench was very is around the hilltop and well-covered narrow and only allowed one person by trees. This is the only hill along the to pass. The bottom of the trench was border with trees on its top. They were even narrower than its upper reaches. possibly planted by the British to cover Figure 11 gives an idea of the top of the the site. trench, which was completely covered Figure 3 shows the view from Robin’s by corrugated iron sheets and earth in Nest to Wong Mau Hang Shan. The some places. Possibly, most parts of site is at the end of the ridge. There this trench were concealed from the is a track going up the hilltop from its air like this. This area was considered rear. Figure 4 shows a jeep track to heavily-fortified because the trench the top of the hill. The track was built system was rather extensive, as shown on the rear of the hill and hidden by the in Figure 12, and surrounded the terrain. hilltop by connecting to various defense positions to form a redoubt. At least Figure 5 shows the gate to the site, one section of the trench had concrete near which the remains of building roofing, as shown in Figure 13. foundations can be found. A trench directly connected to an ex-building as Another example of a defense position shown in Figure 6. There were remains is shown in Figure 14. Note the tree of the foundations of another building in front of it hides the position from nearby, as indicated in Figure 7. That being spotted from below and the air. building was supported by simple Some positions were built underground, wooden frames covered by corrugated as shown in Figure 15, protected by iron sheets. The main defence site was concrete roofs. The example shown in in the area behind the tree. Near this Figure 16 could be the headquarters. SBE 62 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 61-72 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554

Figure 1: Location of Wang Lek Figure 5: The gate to the site at Wang Lek

Figure 2: Strategic position of the Wang Lek site

Figure 6: Remains of building foundations near the gate

Figure 3: Look down from Robin’s Nest to Wong Mau Hang Shan

Figure 7: Remains of building foundations of another building nearby

Figure 4: A jeep track to the hilltop

SBE 63 Post-war Hong Kong Border Security Sites: Wang Lek, Pak Kung Au and Robin’s Nest (Hung Fa Leng)

Figure 8: An underground OP near the building

Figure 9: Building materials of the OP at Wang Lek

Figure 11: Top view of the trench

Figure 12: Part of the trench network surrounding the hilltop of Wang Lek

Figure 10: A trench at Wang Lek SBE 64 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 61-72 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554

Figure 16: A concrete-covered underground structure

PAK KUNG AU

Pak Kung Au is a “gap” or “pass” along the hilly range between Hong Kong and Shenzhen through which a major route Figure 13: A section of the trench to Sha Tau Kok area runs. Therefore, it protected by concrete roofing was a strategically important location. Both the Japanese occupiers and British forces built defence structures in this location.

To control Pak Kung Au pass, a MacIntosh Fort was built on the ridge that looks down to the pass. A large observation post (OP) was found on the 390-meter hilltop. There were also Figure 14: A defense position two WW2 Japanese pillboxes in the connected to the trench vicinity. The British headquarters and living quarters were built on a ridge gap behind the OP. The site is in a very remote location not connected to any other part of Hong Kong by road. Two buildings there provided basic living facilities (bed rooms, kitchens, bath rooms and toilets) for the defence force in this remote location. Other living facilities included two large metal water tanks and some stoves. Figure 15: An underground defense position SBE 65 Post-war Hong Kong Border Security Sites: Wang Lek, Pak Kung Au and Robin’s Nest (Hung Fa Leng)

The upper panel of Figure 17 shows the ridge from the Sha Tau Kok side. Pak Kung Au is behind the hill. The OP was in the location within the red circle in Figure 18.

Figure 19 shows the MacIntosh Fort above the Pak Kung Au Pass. Behind the road to the right is Shenzhen. The OP, as shown in Figure 20, commands a good view of the ridge to Sha Tau Kok. It was connected to the MacIntosh Fort along the ridge down to Pak Kung Au.

Figure 21 shows the context of the OP. The ridge in the background connects to Robin’s Nest. Office and living buildings were built near the OP behind the knoll. The building in Figure 22 Figure 17: Location of an OP at Pak had a kitchen and bathroom. Figure Kung Au 23 shows a large building that was possibly used as an office.

Many life support facilities can be found near these buildings including stoves, as shown in Figures 24 and 25.

A British defense position is shown in Figure 26. Figure 18: Location of an OP at Pak Figure 27 shows one of the Japanese Kung Au pillboxes on the ridge behind the OP. It controlled the ridge all the way to Robin’s Nest. Figure 28 shows another Japanese pillbox. It controlled the ridge down to Pak Kung Au.

Figure 19: A MacIntosh Fort above the Pak Kung Au Pass

SBE 66 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 61-72 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554

Figure 20: an OP on top of 390-meter Figure 23: Another building near the hill OP on the 390-meter hill

Figure 21: Setting of the OP on the Figure 24: A water tank near the 390-meter hill building at Pak Kung Au

Figure 22: A building near the OP on the 390-meter hill

SBE 67 Post-war Hong Kong Border Security Sites: Wang Lek, Pak Kung Au and Robin’s Nest (Hung Fa Leng)

Figure 27: A Japanese pillbox on the ridge behind the OP controlling the ridge to Robin’s Nest

Figure 25: A stove near the water tank

Figure 28: Another Japanese pillbox below the OP at Pak Kung Au

Figure 26: A defence position around the site

SBE 68 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 61-72 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554

ROBIN’S NEST is a helipad, as shown in Figure 38. The original defensive buildings were Robin’s Nest as a hill (Hung Fa Leng demolished, but one might have been or “red flowers ridge”) is a major converted into a radio station, as shown geographical barrier between Hong in Figure 39. The last milestone has a Kong and Shenzhen. Therefore, the “5000” mark, as indicated in Figure 40. British built defensive structures here to control the ridge. Figures 41-42 show the strategic position of Robin’s Nest. Figure 41 Figure 29 shows Robin’s Nest, as shows Shenzhen City as the background seen from Sha Tau Kok Road. A of the radio station at the end of the radio tower marked the end of the paved road. Figures 42 and 43 show main road. However, there is a jeep Sha Tau Kok and New Territories new track going up to the hilltop and along town development in the distance, the ridge. Figure 30 shows Robin’s respectively. Figures 44 and 45 show Nest, as viewed from Wo Keng Shan. two defensive positions dug into the Lin Ma Hang and Shenzhen in the ground along the ridge down to Ling Chinese Mainland are on the left-hand Ma Hang. side. Figure 31 shows the road link to Robin’s Nest. Figure 32 shows the location of an army camp built in a location that was flanked by hills and close to a stream. A likely water tank could be found near the camp, as shown in Figure 33.

Figure 34 shows a paved military Figure 29: Robin’s Nest seen from Sha road from Wo Keng Shan Road to the Tau Kok Road top of Robin’s Nest. Milestones were erected along one side of the entire road. An un-metaled jeep track was also found, as indicated in Figure 35. The barbed wire fence along the track has long since been removed, but note that it stands on the right of the photo. Judging from the remains of the Figure 30: Robin’s Nest seen from Wo barbed wire stands in Figure 36, we Keng Shan may deduce that there were two sets of barbed wire fence surrounding the hill.

Towards the end of the paved road as shown in Figure 37 near the hilltop SBE 69 Post-war Hong Kong Border Security Sites: Wang Lek, Pak Kung Au and Robin’s Nest (Hung Fa Leng)

Figure 34: A paved military road from Figure 31: The main road to Robin’s Wo Keng Shan Road to the top of Nest Robin’s Nest

Figure 32: Location of an army camp in Robin’s Nest

Figure 33: A likely water tank on the hill top near the army camp

Figure 35: Jeep track on the hill ride connecting to defense position

SBE 70 Surveying and Built Environment Vol 28(1), 61-72 June 2019 ISSN 1816-9554

Figure 36: Remains of barbed wire Figure 39: Helipad at end of the main fence stands road

Figure 37: A defense position on Wo Keng Shan with Robin’s Nest in the background

Figure 38: The main road

Figure 40: Milestone 5000

SBE 71 Post-war Hong Kong Border Security Sites: Wang Lek, Pak Kung Au and Robin’s Nest (Hung Fa Leng)

Figure 41: The radio station at road’s end with Shenzhen in the background Figure 45 A defense position located along the ridge going down to Lin Ma Hang

REFERENCES

Tan YK, Lai LWC and Leung NTH (2018), “Hong Kong Border Security Figure 42: Ridge in direction of Sha Facilities 1950 - 1997,” Surveying and Tau Kok Built Environment, 27, 1, 66-76.

Figure 43: Ridge to Lin Ma Hang

Figure 44: A defense position located along the ridge going down to Lin Ma Hang SBE 72