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The Chief Executive, Mr Donald Tsang, inspected an urban redevelopment project of the Urban Renewal Authority (URA) in Kowloon City today (October 4) and visited two families which have benefited from the project.
Mr Tsang was first briefed by the URA Chairman, Mr Barry Cheung Chun-yuen, on its projects in the territory, and particularly in the Kowloon City District where there is a large number of dilapidated buildings.
Mr Tsang then inspected a five-storey building at Chi Kiang Street built in the 1950s and visited a family living therein. The building together with four others will be redeveloped into a residential building with about 116 units, the majority of them under 500 square feet, to be completed in 2014.
The family shared with Mr Tsang how they had been coping with the inconvenience and insecurity living in the dilapidated building. Mr Tsang was pleased to learn that the family was satisfied with the rehousing arrangement to a public housing estate in the same district.
Mr Tsang then proceeded to visit a family in a private residential development at Bailey Street. The family bought the apartment with the compensation from URA for acquiring their previous flat on Chi Kiang Street.
The family told Mr Tsang how their living condition had improved with better building management and environment.
"People are the centre of urban renewal. The primary purpose of urban renewal is to improve people's living condition in run-down areas and rejuvenate our city's environment for the benefit of all.
"I am happy to see today how families can benefit from well-planned redevelopment projects.
"There have been rising demands for more community involvement, greater transparency and growing passion for preserving the local culture. It is therefore important that in pursuing future urban renewal projects, we adopt a 'bottom-up' and 'district-based' approach to better understand needs and aspirations of the communities of old districts. This is a key theme in our review of the urban renewal strategy.
"Urban renewal also helps make better use of urban land for providing more small- and medium-sized apartments to address the needs of the public," Mr Tsang said.
Ends/Monday, October 4, 2010
Issued at HKT 18:27
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