From Government to Governance? Politics of Planning in the First Decade of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region

Abstract

This paper investigates when and why a civil society will challenge growth-biased plans, made by a top-down mode of planning within the non-democratic setting of an executive government-led and economics-first society. In the controversies surrounding the Government's plans to further the filling in of the beautiful Victoria Harbour to produce land for “development” in the first decade of the post-colonial Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), participatory and multi-stakeholder-centred planning practices emerged when many interested parties were dissatisfied with the official reclamation plan. Using the Protection of the Harbour Ordinance, an anti-reclamation civil society organization managed to take the government to court and successfully stop further harbour reclamation, forcing government officials to heed alternative views on harbourfront planning, and to pay attention to non-government professionals ready to use their skills to serve the growing civil society. However, despite this early success, the progress of the case so far suggests that participation remains tokenistic, producing minimal fundamental institutional changes. Hence, professionals within and outside the government continue to face an interrelated, two-pronged challenge: how to further empower lay citizens as they seek new ways to institutionalize a more participatory mode of planning governance.

Keywords:

• Governance
• lived experiences
• reclamation
• non-democratic setting
• civil society
• role of planners

Introduction

As a former British colony, now under the ingenious “one country, two systems” arrangement of the People's Republic of China, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) continues to be a non-democratic, administrative city helmed by an “executive-led” government. The mini-constitution of the city, known as the Basic Law, has promised “no changes for 50 years”. Yet this “no changes” policy needs to be understood in the context of “one country, two systems” as reiterated at the SAR's tenth anniversary by the Chairman of the National People's Congress, Wu Bangguo: “However much power the central government decides to assign to the Special Administrative Region (SAR), this is what the SAR gets. There does not exist the question of ‘residual power’ ” (Li, 2007, EDT2). On 6 June 2008, Mr Wu further reminded the audience at a Basic Law forum in Beijing that the SAR's “Chief Executive [who also attended the Forum] should play a dominant role in a political system that should not be a copy of the western model of separation of powers between the branches of government” (Li, 2007, EDT2, my emphasis). Hong Kong's political ecology has evolved a lot since its return to Chinese sovereign rule on 1 July 1997, especially after half a million people took to the streets on 1 July 2003 in protest against the unpopular national security law required by Article 23 of the Basic Law.1 This historic march, occurring after an eventful spring when Hong Kong was attacked by SARS virus, brought down not only the Secretaries for Health and Security but also, eventually, the first Chief Executive. Since then, the communities in Hong Kong seem to have determined to part ways with an apathetic political culture associated with the colonial past and aspired to have a say in the city's future. Small wonder, then, that polling of people's confidence in the “one country, two systems” principle dived 5% after Wu reminded the SAR that the source of its power could only come from the central government (Wong, 2007, EDT3).

The context of Hong Kong under an executive-led government, experiencing the constraints imposed by the “one country, two systems” principle, provides an exciting laboratory in which to understand the possible role of planning in a tug-of-war between the state and a growing civil society. While the state seeks to maintain the existing mode of governance, favouring the production of growth-orientated spatial plans, civil society seeks to challenge that model of governance, seeking alternative methodologies for planning. This conflict raises crucial questions that are to some extent applicable to planners everywhere. Is planning necessarily a mere tool of the state to govern and to produce the necessary economic spaces? Can urban planning also acknowledge the lived experiences of different stakeholders and empower a diversified citizenry who has no right to universal suffrage? By examining the controversies surrounding harbour reclamation plans in Hong Kong, this paper documents the struggle of civil society to counteract plans made by the government in a non-democratic setting. In the process, it asks what role a more participatory planning process might play in transforming the relationships between the state and civil society when formulating spatial development, and what position professionals working on the built-environment can take in relation to that process.

This paper is made up of five sections. The second section charts an exploratory journey through existing literature to understand when and why civil society would challenge a spatial plan formulated via a government-dominated mode of governance. It investigates the possible roles participatory urban planning practices and professionals can play in the process, and the possible outcomes that can arise. The following section outlines the institutional and political setting of Hong Kong, followed by a description of the city's top–down mode of urban planning, looking at how the system perpetuates certain “myths as truths and knowledge”, that is, elevating certain institutionalized practices as absolute “truths”, in the development of the economics-first city.2 Section four reviews the history of reclamation in the city, showing that it has been a major and widely accepted means to accommodate urban growth since the mid nineteenth century. However, before the mid 1990s, arguments over reclamation projects were usually confined to the government, waterfront land owners and related business interests. The growth and maturing of the civil society after the return of the city to Chinese rule has meant that the top-down planning mode has been challenged for the first time by an increasingly vocal community, who are demanding a voice in (re)-shaping their beloved but often segregated and segmented harbourfront, which is currently largely inaccessible for people's enjoyment. The controversial case of the Victoria Harbour Reclamation, the anti-reclamation campaigns mounted on behalf of the civil society, and the government's successes and failures in engaging the communities in different harbourfront planning and design exercises are examined in detail to understand the utility and limitations of participatory urban planning in an executive government-led polity. Finally, section five highlights the constellation of factors that have triggered the civil society's attempts to challenge the government's growth-orientated plan and reviews how successful these attempts have been in terms of ensuring the inclusion in the plans of the lived experience and aspirations of different stakeholders.

Theoretical Exploration: State–Civil Society Transition and Roles of Urban Planning

One afternoon, a decade before the 1997 handover when I was still a planning student, I joined my professors in attending a meeting organized by government planners to unveil the city's Territorial Development Strategy. I was excited to learn about their intention to relocate the international airport from a densely populated urban neighbourhood in the heart of the city and their plans to undertake massive reclamation around the harbour, redirecting growth and development from new towns in the New Territories to the city centre.3 The professors raised some questions, but no one in the meeting questioned why the government did not consult the public in the planning process, nor raised any doubts about the extent of the Victoria Harbour project. Consultation seemed to be an alien concept in the planning process of Hong Kong. However, in 1997, just ten years later, a private member's bill was enacted in the Legislative Council to save the beautiful Victoria Harbour from becoming a river, if not a nullah. This was the now-famous Protection of the Harbour Ordinance, whose passage helped to inspire a generation of civil activists to advocate for the conservation of environmental and social heritage in the city. Today, a decade after the 1997 handover, social activism in planning-related issues abounds and people have challenged the rationale and logic of the government's various planning efforts on many fronts. What has triggered this phenomenal change?

In the western world, economic and political restructuring unleashed by intensified globalization has moved many developed places towards a mode of governance beyond a system dominated by government, though at varying paces (Jessop, 1997; Lambert & Oatley, 2002, p. 126; Rhodes, 1997; Stoker, 2000). This can be seen in a shift in policy making and implementation away from top-down government-led modes towards networks of cross-sectoral partnerships, characterized by shared power. As defined by Stoker (2000, p. 3), “governance involves working across boundaries within the public sector or between the public sector and private or voluntary sectors. It focuses attention on a set of actors that are drawn from but also beyond the formal institutions of government. A key concern is processes of networking and partnership.” However, there seems to be a dearth of literature on identifying the factors that have contributed to transforming the modes of governance in Asian cities (Devas & Delay, 2006; Ng, 2005a). One exception, perhaps, is the work of Amirahmadi and Gladstone (1996). Addressing the unique situations of a developing country, they postulate a three-stage development process: a period of state-led growth with a strong developmental state and a weak civil society, followed by a transitional period when civil society becomes more powerful and enters into conflict with the state; and finally, a third period with two possible outcomes, either paralysed development caused by a dominating state or an overly strong civil society, or a sustained development constituted by a stable balance of power between the state and civil society. The critical point is the “key point of transition” (Amirahmadi & Gladstone, 1996, p. 23), an historical juncture when planners should take a more active role in facilitating social changes, leading to a balance of power between the state and the civil society.

How can planners identify the key point of transition? Henri Lefebvre's theory of “the production of space” may provide some hints. To him, “each mode of production has its own particular space” (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 46). Spatial practices unique to a specific mode of production are often constructed as “codes”, “knowledge” or even “institutions” to justify spatial reproduction (p. 47). To rely too much on these codes and institutionalized knowledge to formulate plans that facilitate a particular mode of production, however, is to invite catastrophe (p. 415) especially when the plans (the conceived spaces) are divorced from the lived experience of the people. Hence, “the production of space—has nothing incidental about it: it is a matter of life and death” (p. 417). Any “revolution of space”, Lefebvre argues, requires “an active and massive intervention on the part of the ‘interested parties’ ” (p. 419) and their “great inventiveness and creativity.” These can only be unleashed through interaction between plans made by the authorities and counter-plans made by interested parties, the result of which can be seen “as a gauge of ‘real’ democracy” (p. 420). In other words, the key point of transition identified by Amirahmadi and Gladstone (1996) will probably not take place unless the state and the civil society develop a dialectic relationship, characterized by a grave mismatch between plans conceived by the government and what Lefebvre called the actual lived experiences of the interested parties. However, what kinds of relationships could the state and civil society develop as they compete and cooperate to restructure space? And what roles can the planning profession play in this course of development?

Perhaps we can find some clues in Sherry Arnstein's 1969 seminal paper, “A Ladder of Citizen Participation”. To Arnstein, “citizen participation…is…for citizen power. It is the redistribution of power that enables the have-not citizens, presently excluded from the political and economic processes, to be deliberately included in the future. It is the strategy by which the have-nots join in determining how information is shared, goals and policies are set, tax resources are allocated, programs are operated, and benefits like contracts and patronage are parceled out” (1969, p. 216). However, Arnstein discovers that some types of participation are unhelpful, for instance a kind of “non-participation… to substitute for genuine participation. Their [the powerholders'] real objective is not to enable people to participate in planning or conducting programs, but to enable powerholders to ‘educate’ or ‘cure’ the participants… [a process characterized by] levels of ‘tokenism’ that allow the have-nots to hear and to have a voice… But under these conditions they lack the power to ensure that their views will be heeded by the powerful. When participation is restricted to these levels, there is no follow-through, no ‘muscle,’ hence no assurance of changing the status quo… Further up the ladder are levels of ‘citizen power’ with increasing degrees of decision-making clout” (p. 218, my emphases). However, as Arnstein admits, the model does not account for the existence of different levels of participation such as “resistance to power redistribution” by the power holders or a lack of capacity of the less knowledgeable citizen groups to realize people power in the participatory process (p. 218). This last point, also raised by Amirahmadi and Gladstone, suggests that planners may have an important role to play at the key point of transition.

Less knowledgeable citizen groups not only lack the capacity to participate, they may not even appreciate the existence of “truth politics” in the planning process. Gunder, synthesizing various authors (Bourdieu, 1998, 2000; Flyvbjerg, 1998a, 1998b; Foucault, 1980, 1982, 2002; Hillier, 2002) asserts that, “Subtle and overt power asymmetries negate the potential for democratic equality in public debate and participatory decision-making. This is a consequence of inequalities in cultural and financial capital distribution for the participants; ideological distortions, or power, which constitutes any and all ‘socially constructed truths’ within debate” (Gunder, 2003, p. 240). As pointed out by McGuirk, “power takes effect through the ability to define what is accepted as knowledge, and is accorded the authoritative status of truth. The production of knowledge is therefore an effect of the exercise of power” (McGuirk, 2001, p. 207). What roles can planners assume in this game of truth politics?

Forester (1999), a pioneering advocate of “planning in the face of power” forcefully argues that “when value is at stake, argument and evidence matter, and norms of enquiry too can be criticized” (p. 177). Similarly, Healey suggests that in a planning process “multiple rationalities” exist, each of which is “infused with particular power relations and potential capacities to mobilise others” (Healey, 2000, p. 919). As a result, it is critical for planners to play active “roles in urban governance contexts, and [be] involved in the discussion, design and management of specific actions, grasping the fine grain of the interactive dynamics of situational specifics and broader dynamics” with a view to enhancing social justice (Healey, 2003, p. 116). In other words, planners should counteract conceived plans formulated to benefit a unique power structure through instituting a participatory planning process that enables various stakeholders to identify the differential and unjust impacts the conceived plan may have on their actual lived experiences. As argued by Lefebvre, an active and massive intervention on the part of the interested parties is necessary to formulate plans with great inventiveness and creativity nurtured by the rich lived experiences of the participants (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 419).

Top-Down Planning Processes and Myths as Truths in an Economics First Non-Democratic City

Although Hong Kong became a British colony in 1842, the growth of the city did not start until after 1949, when the People's Republic of China was established. A society of refugees fleeing from a communist regime to the area under colonial administration produced a struggling population determined to survive against all odds. “The purpose of Hong Kong [was] to make money” (Rabushka, 1979), and it was “a monument to the dominance of [private] interests, and a result of the unwillingness or inability of the government to alter or amend that development process” (Bristow, 1984, p. 58). Nowadays, the government is not only reluctant to change the situation, as argued by Ng and Cook (1997, p. 5), but actually has vested interests in this development process: “the government of Hong Kong has a dual role as the biggest landlord and as an administrator which determines the development agenda in the executive-led polity in the territory…Government has relied heavily on land sales as a major source of revenue.” In fact, “this vested interest of the government in land-related development has led to an emphasis on ‘economic space’ rather than ‘life space’4 in land use planning in Hong Kong” (Ng, 2005b, p. 123). Yet the government's vested interests in land-related developments are not apparent because of its rhetorical advocacy of a “minimum intervention and maximum support” or in recent years “market leads and government facilitates” economic policy (Tang, 2007). And since the government is not constituted by democratic votes, the administration has considerable autonomous power to run the city as it sees fit.

Ng (2007) argues that this power setting has cultivated a few interrelated “myths as truths” in the planning and development context of Hong Kong. In the name of upholding free market operations, the government has refrained from producing macro-socio-economic plans. The absence of an overall development strategy perpetuates the compartmentalization and contradictions among various departments in the bureaucracy. The case is worsened by the fact that Hong Kong is a society ruled by laws. The existence of different ordinances to support the detailed operations of specific policy areas easily gives an impression that the executive-led, top-down administration must be impartial and fair in planning the city. However, behind this façade of “market leads and government facilitates” is a government with substantial discretionary power vested in law to manipulate the strategic growth directions of the city. The legal system has legitimized a set of planning and development processes that deny citizens a right to participate and confine decision-making power to a privileged few at the apex of the power structure. One may even argue that the process often obscures obvious and visible social and environmental aspects of development, rendering them invisible, in favour of an emphasis on “making a few dollars more” by the private or quasi-private sectors, as well as the government (Ng, 2007). For instance, planning is done at three levels in Hong Kong: the territorial, sub-regional and district (which is further divided into another three layers). However, only the outline zoning plans, or the development permission area plans at the first layer of the district level plans, are statutory plans made according to the Town Planning Ordinance (TPO) (Department of Justice, 2005). The higher level strategic plans and the lower level detailed plans are arrived at administratively. Although in theory the statutory planning process (both in terms of plan making and development control) is stipulated in the short, 28-section TPO, in actuality, people have little right to participate in plan making before the outline zoning plan is ready for gazetting, and already possesses the endorsement of all government departments and the government appointed Town Planning Board (TPB). Although the TPO stipulated the formation of a TPB to formulate plans and adjudicate development applications, the real planning policy making body is the Land Development Planning Committee within the government. In fact, according to Section 12 of the TPO:

1.	The Chief Executive in Council may—(Amended 62 of 2000 s. 3)
2.	1. revoke in whole or in part any approved plan; or 2. refer any approved plan to the Board for— 3. 1. replacement by a new plan, or 2. amendment (Department of Justice, 2005).

In other words, the Chief Executive and the appointed highest policy-making Executive Council have the ultimate power in urban planning. Since the Planning Department is basically an administrative department which commissions actual planning tasks from outside consultants, there is no section within it that deals with urban planning issues at the community level. In other words, Hong Kong government knows no community planning and plans are often made according to the Planning Standards and Guidelines (established codes and knowledge) rather than the researched needs and the lived experiences of a community. Hence, community-based socio-economic or environmental concerns are seldom known to the “armchair” plan makers. In the context of economic depressions triggered by the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the accelerated and intensified economic competition from neighbouring Chinese cities in recent years, the administration seldom needs to apologize for continuing with this biased planning process because social, cultural and environmental considerations are often presented as impediments to “progress” and “development” and are therefore trivialized if not neglected in the planning and development process. The controversy of harbour reclamation and harbourfront planning is a case in point.

Harbour Reclamation

Reclamation Practices: A Major Strategy by the Government to Accommodate Urban Growth

As shown in Figure 1, reclamation has a long history on the rugged terrain of Hong Kong. The process probably began when British troops first landed at Possession Point near the Central District, and began to dump soil and rocks from road constructions into Victoria Harbour (Ng & Chan, 2005, p. 146). In fact, almost the whole of the current Central Business District (CBD) was built on reclaimed land, though a review of its history shows that reclamation has been controversial from the beginning, stimulating opposition from the point that Hong Kong first became a British colony. The first Governor, Sir Henry Pottinger, proclaimed in 1842 that all reclaimed land along the Praya [waterfront] was crown land (Ho, 2004, p. 51), but the colonial government failed to keep track of reclamation works done by marine land owners and by 1855 it was alleged that “some 298,685 square feet of land had been reclaimed illegally” (Davis, 1949, cited in Ng & Chan, 2005, p. 146). In 1856, Governor John Bowring initiated a Praya Scheme from Central to East Point but met with fierce resistance from harbourfront landowners and merchants, which led to its suspension for 40 years despite renewed efforts by later Governors (SCMP, 1982, p. 9). Then, in 1867, the government took the crown lessees to court to recover repair costs of the Central Praya Scheme, an incident which indicated the scantiness of the resources possessed by the colonial government for building the City of Victoria. However, the waterfront landlords managed to win the case at the Supreme Court which ruled that in order to protect private property rights, the Government was not allowed to reclaim land in front of marine lots (Ng & Chan, 2005, p. 146).

Figure 1 Reclamation in Victoria Harbour (not to scale). Source: Lee & Ng (2007), p. 310.

Under the pressures of growing population (population in 1881 was 160,402, and by 1904 it was 377,850) and rising demand for land and housing, the Praya Reclamation Scheme was revived by a private businessman, Paul Chater, in 1886. Chater even bypassed the Hong Kong Governor and travelled to London to “conclude negotiations with the Colonial Office” for a scheme that would guarantee financial benefits to the government at no cost. Lot owners could acquire reclaimed land with a lease of 999 years when they helped to fund the cost of the scheme, though they still had to pay an additional Crown rent at $200 per quarter acre (Stoner, 1989). The project was not completed until 1904. The success of the scheme firmly established the mutually beneficial relationship between land developers and the government in producing land through reclamation.

With the influx of refugees and capital after the establishment of communist China in 1949, Hong Kong underwent a transferred industrialization process, leading to increased demand for land. In the ensuing years, reclamation has become a dominant strategy to accommodate urban growth, from Central Harbour areas to the coastal zones of the rural New Territories where more than 30 km² of land had been reclaimed in the post-WWII decades for new town development (Ng & Cook, 1997, p. 8). However, globalization, rising production costs and the adoption of the open door policy by socialist China since late 1978 have led to an intense economic restructuring process in Hong Kong, requiring growth in central areas to facilitate the tertiarization of the economy. After the decision to remove the centrally located Kai Tak International Airport to the outlying Lantau Island, a move made possible by massive reclamation to accommodate the mega-multi-modal transport infrastructure, the government announced in 1994 that another 23 km² would be reclaimed, of which 12.8 km² would be in the metropolitan area (PELB, 1995). To understand the scale of this figure, it is important to recognize that it is equivalent to 150 years of Central Harbour reclamation (GISD, 2005), and that the territory's total commercial land area is only 3 km² (GISD, 2005). Adding 12.8 km² to the Harbour area is certainly not insignificant, therefore.

However, this ambitious reclamation project has not been welcomed by everyone. This time, resistance has not just come from the groups in the private sector that have vested interests at the harbourfront but also from a growing civil society. Citizens have expressed concerns that further narrowing the beautiful Victoria Harbour would turn it into a river or just “open water”. To many Hong Kongers, “Victoria Harbour is the source of nourishment, a place for peace of mind and an everlasting part of our memory from generations to generations” (Ng & Chan, 2005, p. 177). Since many Hong Kongers regard the beautiful Harbour as “the symbol of Hong Kong, representing its citizens and love” (p. 179), they are stirred and upset by the prospect that the government's reclamation plans might turn more of the Central Harbour area into land packed with skyscrapers.

Civil Society Challenging Government's Statutory Reclamation Plans

In the early 1990s, the government announced a five-phase reclamation strategy in the Central Harbour to connect the new airport back to the main urban areas. The aim was also to provide land for future projects: the Hong Kong Station of the Airport Railway, the extended overrun tunnel of the Airport Railway, the Central–Wan Chai Bypass and Island Eastern Corridor Link, the future Shatin to Central Link, and the future north Hong Kong Island line. Additionally, the construction of a world-class waterfront promenade was planned, as was the improvement of the environment in adjoining crowded districts by providing new open space on the new reclamation, integrating the development with the existing area (Figure 2) (CEDD, 2007). Strangely enough, land to accommodate commercial development was not mentioned, but the Central Reclamation Phase I alone has housed the two International Financial Centres and the Four Seasons Hotel on top of the Hong Kong Airport Railway Station. The Central Reclamation Phase III provides another 0.86 million m² of gross floor area (Expert Panel, 2005) for commercial use.

Figure 2 The Five Phases of Central and Wan Chai Reclamation. Source: Author. Hong Kong outline map: http://worldmapsonline.com/images/OutlineMaps/Hong%20Kong.jpg, accessed 13 January 2008; base photo: image@2008 Digital Globe, Google Earth, accessed 13 January 2008.

Between 1993 and 1998, three phases of the reclamation were carried out but the remaining two phases (Central Reclamation Phase III and Wan Chai Reclamation Phase II) have caused a lot of controversy and debate.

As Central Harbour reclamation proceeded, the Society for the Protection of the Harbour (SPH) Limited was set up. Launched in November 1995, it conducted a “Save our Harbour” campaign in 1996, receiving 170,000 supporting signatures from the public.5 In the same year, the chairman (a solicitor) and vice chairman (then a legislative council member) drafted the Protection of the Harbour Bill, which the vice chairman, Christine Loh, managed to pass in Legislative Council in June 1997 as a private member's bill. This piece of legislation restricted reclamation in the central part of Victoria Harbour, that is, from Central to North Point.6 An April 1997 survey commissioned by the Society for Protection of the Harbour suggested that the group's aims appeal to many Hong Kongers, revealing that 69% of interviewees were against further reclamation in Victoria Harbour (Chung, 1997). This suggests a major rift between the reclamation plans and the aspirations of the citizens.

As a result, when the government gazetted statutory plans for the remaining reclamation projects (one in Central in 1998 and one in Wan Chai, an area next to the CBD, in 2002) in a process stipulated by the TPO, they received many complaints from green groups and the general public. A total of 70 objections were noted to the Central Reclamation Phase III project and, after rounds of negotiations with the objectors, the government agreed to reduce the scale of reclamation from 38 hectares to 18 hectares. The revised plan was approved by the Chief Executive in Council in 2000 while the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council approved funding for the detailed design in the same year. It had a smooth passage through all of the statutory procedures and contracts were tendered so that work could start in 2003 (Ng, 2005a).

By contrast, the last phase of the five-stage reclamation plan (Wan Chai Reclamation Phase II) caused much conflict. It proposed a reclamation area of 26 hectares, including a 2-hectare Harbour Park which aims to bring people to the Harbour. However, the Town Planning Board received a total of 778 objections, most questioning the scale of the reclamation and the necessity of the Harbour Park. The Board decided to revise the plan but determined to retain the controversial park and in response, SPH initiated a judicial review against this decision. In July 2003, the High Court ruled that the TPB had failed to comply with section 3 of the Protection of the Harbour Ordinance, stressing that every reclamation project should be compatible with the principles of “compelling overriding and present need, no viable alternative and minimum impairment” (Chu, 2003, paragraph 95). The TPB lodged an appeal against the judgement, seeking clarification from the Court of Final Appeal about the legal principles behind the Protection of the Harbour Ordinance. In January 2004 the Court of Final Appeal rejected the TPB's appeal, stating definitively that reclamation could not be justified unless it served an overriding public need, establishing the need to show compelling and present demand along with pressing economic, environmental and social needs (Hong Kong High Court, 2004). With this success, SPH applied for another judicial review of the Central Reclamation Phase III, but was refused by the Court in March 2004.

With the legal issues settled, the government has had to redraw a number of plans which involve reclamation along the harbourfront. Instead of returning the statutory plans to the TPB for revision, the government decided to set up a higher level advisory committee to advise the making of future harbour plans. This led to the birth of the Harbourfront Enhancement Committee (HEC) in May 2004.

Harbourfront Enhancement Committee: Successful (Tokenistic) Engagement?

The government heeded the demands of civil society, and erased the word “advisory” from the name of its new committee. Invited organizations, including the SPH, were allowed to nominate representatives, rather than appointments being made directly by the government. However, despite these innovations, the nature of the HEC is not very different from its counterparts in other policy areas. It has one major task: to advise the government on how to engage the public in planning the harbourfront.7 In terms of membership, it is constituted from government officials, private sector organizations and many active participants in civil society organizations concerned with issues surrounding harbour reclamation. The Committee agreed that HEC meetings should be open to the general public and all its documents made available via its official website.

While it was obvious then that the government's original plans had been discredited, it was unclear exactly what should replace them. Social activists and professionals sitting on the HEC pointed out that the planning process in Hong Kong was flawed, arguing against its top-down emphasis and expressing concern about bias towards infrastructure-led development. Through their efforts, the HEC introduced an innovative series of planning practices not formerly pursued in the public sector. Three sub-committees were formed in the first term of the HEC: a sub-committee on Wan Chai Development Phase II Review, a sub-committee on South East Kowloon Development Review and a sub-committee on Harbour Plan Review which eventually produced a set of Harbour Planning Principles and Guidelines. In re-planning the Wan Chai reclamation project, the HEC managed to convince the engineers who were leading the project in the Civil Engineering Development Department that an envisioning stage should be included in the process—a bold and uncertain step for a group whose main concern was to make sure that the road infrastructure would be in place. At this envisioning stage, the HEC invited many collaborators from civilian society and the academic world to join the project, who helped to ensure that sustainable development principles were produced for evaluating options that would be generated at a later stage. Enthusiasm was rekindled by the tripartite partnership structure, and many members of the HEC invested a considerable amount of their time in helping the government to push through a plan which they hoped would really meet the public's aspirations for a new, vibrant and accessible waterfront. Now through the envisioning and realization stages, the plan is currently at the detailed planning stage, with the formal planning authority, the TPB, in control.

Another sub-committee was set up under the HEC to replan the old Kai Tak International Airport site. This group had four guiding principles: it advocated zero-reclamation, it espoused multidisciplinary efforts, it encouraged public participation and it supported scheme robustness (Planning Department, 2005). The group's review went through three stages of public engagement, firstly, to determine the visions and key issues for Kai Tak, secondly to develop options within the Outline Concept Plan with “no reclamation” as a starting point, and finally to develop the Preliminary Outline Development Plan (PODD) (HEC, 2007a). The PODD was eventually adopted by the Town Planning Board, and the gazetted plan was approved in 2007. The HEC-driven planning process has even won an award given by Hong Kong Institute of Planners in 2007 to recognize its innovative participatory planning process.

Central Reclamation Phase III: Non-participation?

However, while the government has fully engaged with the HEC in re-planning Wan Chai Reclamation Phase II and the Kai Tak old airport site, it has refused to open the court-endorsed Central Reclamation Phase III project for participatory planning and design, despite repeated suggestions made by HEC members. One can understand why the government is adamant against this—with 0.86 million m² of gross commercial floor space soon to be operational on the reclaimed site in the heart of the central business district, it needs to ensure the timely provision of the additional transport infrastructure. Although the statutory plan of the Central Harbour reclamation consists of quite a few so-called “comprehensive development areas” which are still open to various planning and design considerations, the government has fiercely guarded its sole control over the planning and design of this site. Hence, unlike the controversial Wan Chai harbourfront reclamation, the general public has no opportunity to contribute to the future of the Central Harbour reclamation. This unfortunate situation was exposed when the actual reclamation started to take shape and the general public suddenly realized that some important waterfront heritage sites, witnesses of Hong Kong's history as a British colony and the city's transformation from an industrial city to an international financial centre, were about to be demolished to make way for the mega road infrastructure and commercial development.

In 2006 the Government announced the planning scheme for the Central reclamation based on the approved outline zoning plan, (Figure 3). Up until this point, the discussion had been surrounding reclamation generally. It was only when dates for decommissioning and re-provisioning of the Star Ferry Pier and the demolition of the Star Ferry Clock Tower were set that the general public suddenly realized the threat to their treasured collective memory of these places. Many professionals argued that it would be technically feasible to keep the Star Ferry and Queen's Pier (Figure 4) if the P2 corridor were moved north by about 20 feet, or six metres (Ng, T.W., 2006). In early December 2006, the Secretary for Home Affairs informed the Legislative Council that the 2001 EIA Report suggested the removal of the Star Ferry Pier, though when the SEE (Social, Environment and Economics) Network, a circle of volunteer planners, architects, artists and lay public concerned about social, environmental and economic issues, went through the documents of this report, they discovered that one of the appendices written by Peter Chan had actually emphasized the historical significance of the Star Ferry (SEE Network, 2007). This document noted that the Star Ferry played a crucial role in the 1966–1967 riots as a result of a five cent fare increase, that it was also a significant part of the history of transportation development in the city. The Ferry was a significant Hong Kong icon with worldwide appeal, voted as one of the 50 must see sites in the world by National Geographic.

Figure 3 Study Area and Key Development Sites of the Urban Design Study for the New Central Harbourfront (Central Reclamation Phase III). Source: Adapted from Planning Department, 2007.

Figure 4 Star Ferry and Queen's Pier within the Central Reclamation Phase III Project (Taken on 14 October 2005). Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Victoria_Harbour_from_City_Hall_14-Oct-2005_%281%29.jpg, accessed 13 January 2008.

On 11 November 2006 when the old Star Ferry Pier stopped operation, tens of thousands of citizens flocked to the site to bid farewell to the Clock Tower, while civil society organizations continued to organize various activities to try to stop its demolition. Despite continuous and resolute protest efforts and activities organized by young passionate social activists (Figure 5), the Director of Environmental Protection8 issued an emergency works permit in mid December 2006 that allowed contractors to work through the night to tear down the Clock Tower (Asprey, 2006). While the mechanical clock is dismantled and preserved, the concrete structure of the Clock Tower was secretly trashed in a landfill site. To the government planners, the public outcry at the demolition of the Star Ferry Clock Tower was puzzling and irrational because they had dutifully gone through all the statutory planning processes which the court had verified and validated. The citizens, however, were shocked at the government's lack of concern over issues of heritage conservation and their lack of care for spaces harbouring many collective memories. For many, the Star Ferry was destroyed solely because the government wanted to see the development of a massive “groundscraper” on the reclaimed land.9

Figure 5a People expressing their views on the demolition of the Star Ferry. Source: author. Figures 5b and 5c. Some protestors tried to stop the demolition of the clock tower. Source: author.

The battle over the Star Ferry was quickly followed by another over the Queen's Pier. A neighbour of Star Ferry, in colonial days the Pier was the site where the Queen and the British Governors would disembark. Together with the surrounding City Hall and the public Edinburgh Square, it was part of a historical space in the heart of the Central District.10 A number of newly formed heritage concern groups tried very hard to fight for its preservation through many channels, lobbying heritage grading authorities to apply higher grading to the Pier in early 2007 (Figure 6), protesting and even hunger striking, but the government's response remained steadfast. Eventually, the government succeeded in getting the necessary funding from the Legislative Council and managed to close the Pier in April, removing it in August 2007 with a view to reconstructing it after reclamation on the new harbourfront. In May 2007, a belated Urban Design Study for the New Central Harbourfront was launched by the Planning Department. However, in its public engagement workshop, the Planning Department was heavily criticized for providing very incomplete information and for inserting biased options into its questionnaires. For instance, the waterfront promenade actually consists of a 150-m long and 20-m wide berth for the People's Liberation Army (PLA) with road access to its Headquarters at the land side, but this fact was not highlighted in the information distributed during the workshop. Similarly, while seven out of the eight groups in the workshop opted for in situ relocation of the Queen's Pier, this option was not even included in the questionnaire set for participants.11

Figure 6a The Queen's Pier occupied by protestors. The four sets of words have two messages: “Help conserve Queen's Pier: you are the one we miss” and “Government forcing civic revolt: we are ready to fight.” Source: author. Figure 6b. A red banner at the Queen's Pier: “Seize again the land use decision making right.” Source: author.

Concluding Remarks

Key Point of Transition: Triggered by Discontent?

The controversial case of Central Harbour reclamation in Hong Kong has proved Lefebvre (1991) right on at least one count: when a conceived plan made by the non-democratic administrative government according to established codes and institutions, is divorced from the lived experience and aspirations of many interested parties, “catastrophe” is in the making. Indeed, the sentiment of the general public to object to reclamation was also shared by some private sector interests such as those harbourfront property owners who would benefit from continued unobstructed harbour views. In any case, the grave mismatch between the government's reclamation plans and the general public's aspirations for the conservation of their beloved Victoria Harbour was a key factor for the successful launch of the Protection of the Harbour Bill and its eventual enactment in 1997.

Yet outside of this conflict, there seem to be a constellation of historically specific reasons contributing to the surge and partial success of this still unfolding civic movement. The onset of the Asian financial crisis in late 1997 and the consequent economic depression which lasted for more than eight years dealt a great blow to the growth-orientated city. In 1997, the city's GDP was HK$1.365 billion (US$175 million) and it was not until 2005 that the economy returned to a similar level (HK$1.382 billion) (CSD, 2007). Throughout these years of economic downturn, the city also suffered from red tides affecting fish production, the threat of bird flu, and the government's insensitive handling of the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) epidemic which claimed 300 lives in 2003 (SARS Expert Committee, 2003). Hence, in the summer of 2003, when the government wanted to force through Article 23 of the Hong Kong Basic Law (Department of Justice, 1990) “to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People's Government, or theft of state secrets, to prohibit foreign political organizations or bodies from conducting political activities in the Region, and to prohibit political organizations or bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organizations or bodies”, half a million people demonstrated against the proposed legislation on 1 July 2003 (the sixth anniversary of the HKSAR).

The economic downturn and the social discontent provoked by the administration produced two interesting and interrelated phenomena. Firstly, the economic downturn, marked by a stock market crash and property slump, heavily affected the livelihood of many professionals in the built environment. However, this also, ironically, created valuable spaces and opportunities for them to reflect upon their roles in society. Realizing that in the name of progress, the city had been using reclamation to trash its priceless natural endowment—a deep and wide harbour—many professionals tried to be more vocal. Secondly, at the same time the once efficient and competent bureaucracy became hugely unpopular, and to many it seemed to have lost its usual confidence. Left with few choices after losing the court case in the Wan Chai Reclamation Phase III project, the disorientated bureaucrats had to accept the challenge of introducing new ways to re-plan the harbourfront sites through the establishment of the HEC. And without the professionals representing various civil society organizations and professional institutes,12 the HEC would not have been able to carry out various innovative experiments to engage the general public (CCSG, 2007; Ng, M.K., 2006). However, how successful have these participatory planning activities been in transforming state—civil society relationships?

Tokenistic Participation?

It is true that the HEC experiments have provided living laboratories to help interested participants understand planning issues. Many of those involved came to a better understanding of how envisioning should be done, reaching a deeper understanding of sustainability indicators and coming to a realization about how to formulate spatial plans that reflect lived experiences and aspirations through more open, transparent and engaging planning processes. These groups of planning enthusiasts will certainly be more competent participants in future engagement activities and conversely, some of the more open-minded government officials have also developed their capacities to appreciate the merits of involving different stakeholders at an early stage of the planning processes. However, unlike the enactment of the PHO, the exciting experiments of the HEC in engaging the various stakeholders seem to be only a form of tokenistic participation, in that the HEC has failed to institutionalize other lasting changes. In fact, after the enactment of the PHO, the government has actually abolished the ability of lawmakers to initiate any private member's bill in the Legislative Council.

Although the HEC has contributed to the successful formulation of the Wan Chai and Kai Tak statutory plans, it is just an advisory body with no legal power. The government has refrained from defining clearly the differential roles and functions of the HEC and TPB, and since TPB is constituted by the TPO, it is only natural for people to pay less attention to the advisory HEC. In fact, as reflected in the experiment of Kai Tak, many of the interesting ideas raised by participants in various engagement workshops were either screened out or downplayed because of their impracticality in the eyes of the vetting government officials. For instance, despite repeated requests from various quarters concerning the need for a sustainable transport network linking the 328-hectare airport site with older surrounding urban areas, this is still not a firm part of the plan and is subject to further investigation and a feasibility study. As Arnstein argues, citizens lack the power “to ensure that their views will be heeded by the powerful…there is no follow-through, no ‘muscle’, hence no assurance of changing the status quo” (1969, p. 218).

Another incident that reflects the vulnerability of the existence of the HEC was the downfall of the first Chief Executive in 2005 and the promotion (i.e. election by a 400-member Election Committee) of Donald Tsang, a senior civil servant, as the HKSAR's second Chief Executive. Tsang advocates strong governance by the government, and when he ran for his second term in 2007, there were rumours and signs that the HEC would be dissolved. For example, throughout the preparation of the HEC symposium on Harbourfront Enhancement Out of Public Engagement (HOPE) to mark the end of its four-year term in 2007, government officials indicated that funding would not be available for simultaneous interpretation, which was normally arranged in most HEC activities. Yet when HOPE was held in late June 2007, not only were there simultaneous interpreters, there were also cameramen present to capture the heat of discussions and various activities. The reason behind this volte-face was that the senior government official who first masterminded the HEC became the Minister for Development in Donald Tsang's new cabinet, thus saving the HEC. Its underlying vulnerability, however, is still clear.

With the controversial Kai Tak and Wan Chai reclamation plans more or less settled, the HEC will have tougher challenges ahead. For Hong Kong society as a whole, the resumption of economic growth may mean a return to the pursuit of money, so that fewer people will be willing to spend their time in the participatory planning process in future. If land prices continue to escalate, no one can guarantee that the private sector will not follow the footsteps of their nineteenth-century counterparts who turned from adamant protestors of Praya reclamation to ardent supporters of reclamation in the midst of land and housing shortage and rising land prices. And as their business picks up again, will the active professionals in HEC still have the time for the civil society groups and perhaps more importantly, will they have the courage to challenge those who give them jobs and projects?

Whither the Professionals?

For the current term of the HEC, its terms of reference have been changed. Their mission is now:

To advise the Government through the Secretary for Development on planning, land uses and developments along the existing and new harbourfront of the Victoria Harbour, with a view to protecting the Harbour; improving the accessibility, utilization and vibrancy of the harbourfront areas; and safeguarding public enjoyment of the Harbour through a balanced, effective and public participation approach, in line with the Harbour Planning Principles (HPPs) and Harbour Planning Guidelines (HPGs).

Specifically, the Committee will—

a.	Provide input to the Urban Design Study for the New Central Harbourfront;
b.	Advise on the planning, design and development issues including land use, transport and infrastructure, landscape and other matters relating to the existing and new harbourfront and the adjoining areas;
c.	Advise on means to enlist greater public involvement in the planning and design of the harbourfront areas; and
d.	Explore a framework for the sustainable management of the harbourfront in line with the Harbour Planning Principles and Harbour Planning Guidelines, including public–private partnership. (HEC, 2008)

A task group on the design study for the New Central Harbourfront has been set up to monitor the continuing design of the place. Another task group has been established to address terms of reference (d) by studying management models for the harbourfront. These are extremely important bodies. Though the Harbour Planning Principles and Guidelines (HEC, 2007b) highlight the importance of public engagement and sustainable planning, and guide the design and development of the harbourfront and its surrounding areas, these have not yet become the established codes for all development. Unless future knowledge and institutions working on the production and design of future space include participatory approaches, inclusion will only be tokenistic and there will be no guarantee that the lived experiences and aspirations of different stakeholders will be incorporated in future projects.

However, in an economically prosperous time when jobs and projects abound and “business as usual” is returning, are the planning-related professionals both inside and outside of the administration ready to take up the inter-related challenges of further empowering the lay public through instituting a participatory mode of planning governance? Are they willing to produce plans that balance the need for growth with citizens' aspirations? Will they choose to re-position themselves as “smuggler” or “bridge” planners who have the courage to “break the rules”, “learn to surrender the obsession with control and certainty”, “develop an ability to listen to the voices of multiple publics”, enhance “urban conversations” and “boost inclusivity” (Sandercock, 2004)?

The Central Harbour reclamation saga reveals the unequal power structure embedded in the institutionalized codes and knowledge of the planning system, and in this sense Hong Kong is at a key point of transition—a point when planners should take a more active role in facilitating social changes to shift the balance of power between the state and the civil society (Amirahmadi & Gladstone, 1996, p. 23). The challenge for the planning-related professionals, therefore, is to establish an alternative set of liberating codes and knowledge and community-engaging institutions into the rubric for planning and designing spaces—to capture the great inventiveness, creativity and the rich lived experiences (Lefebvre, 1991) of different stakeholders.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the four anonymous referees for their insightful, critical yet constructive comments. The author would also like to express heartfelt thanks to the superb editorial support rendered by the Journal. All the errors that remain in the article are, of course, the author's sole responsibility. The funding support of the RGC Competitive Earmarked Research Grant (HKU 7462/06J) is gratefully acknowledged.

Notes

 1. According to Article 23 of the Hong Kong Basic Law, “The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People's Government, or theft of state secrets, to prohibit foreign political organizations or bodies from conducting political activities in the Region, and to prohibit political organizations or bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organizations or bodies.”

 2. This idea of “myths as truths and knowledge” is inspired by an argument put forward by McGuirk (2001, p. 207): “power takes effect through the ability to define what is accepted as knowledge, and is accorded the authoritative status of truth.”

 3. This phase of “re-centralization” of spatial planning and development has a lot to do with China's open door policy, de-industrialization in Hong Kong and the tertiarization of its economy and the building of the city into a financial centre for Asia and China's transitional economy.

 4. The distinction between “life space” and “economic space” has been discussed in detail by Friedmann (1988, pp. 96–97). Life space refers to the improvement of people's quality of life (reproduction) whereas economic space refers to the enhancement of economic growth (production).

 5. Listed in the website of the Society for the Protection of the Harbour: http://www.harbourprotection.org/html/all_page_a_eng.htm accessed July 2007.

 6. In 1999, the Protection of the Harbour Ordinance was amended to cover the entire harbour. The most important clauses of this short Ordinance (four sections) appear in section 3: “(1) The harbour is to be protected as a special public asset and a natural heritage of Hong Kong people, and for that purpose there shall be a presumption against reclamation in the harbour. (Amended 75 of 1999 s.4); and (2) All public officials and public bodies shall have regard to the principles stated in subsection (1) for guidance in the exercise of any powers vested in them” (Department of Justice, 1999).

 7. The terms of reference for HEC include: provide feedback to and monitor the reviews on the remaining proposed reclamation within the harbour, namely the Wan Chai North and South East Kowloon reclamation proposal; advise on the planning, design and development issues…relating to the existing and new harbourfront and the adjoining areas; advise on the means to enlist greater public involvement in the planning and design of the harbourfront areas; and explore as a sustainable framework to manage the harbourfront areas, including public?private partnership (HEC, 2004).

 8. The Director of Environmental Protection Department (EPD) used to be a professional in the environment field. However, after the then Director of EPD refused to grant an environmental permit to a railway company to run a line through a man-made wetland in 2000, the Director took early retirement and the post has since been filled by administrative officers.

 9. The Government suggests the construction of a “groundscraper”, that is, the laying flat of a skyscraper because this huge building will lie right in front of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, the seaview of which is protected by its land lease.

10. The civic space embedded within the Queen's Pier, the Edinburgh Square and the City Hall echoes the ruling spaces at Government Hill and the then Governor House on the southern slope via Statue Square in Central, a powerful “political spine” comparable to “fungshui spur lines” in the New Territories. One should never “truncate” a fungshui spur line.

11. Facts observed when the author joined the workshop on 12 May 2007.

12. Non-official members of the HEC include representatives from: the Business Environment Council, the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in Hong Kong, Citizen Envisioning@Harbour (CE@H) (a coalition of 17 organizations), the Conservancy Association (the first green group in Hong Kong), Friends of the Earth, Hong Kong Institute of Architects, Hong Kong Institute of Landscape Architects, Hong Kong Institute of Planners, Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors, Hong Kong Institute of Engineers, Hong Kong Tourism Board, the Real Estate Developers Association of Hong Kong, the Society for Protection of the Harbour Limited as well as some other professionals who join the Committee on a personal basis. The author is the representative of CE@H.