Blue House, a Grade I Historic Building.

In a move designed to show that it has taken the matter into its own hands, and to pull the teeth out of what has become an increasingly politicized issue, the government announced in February the launch of the Revitalizing Historic Buildings Through Partnership Scheme. The Commissioner for Heritage's Office was subsequently established to oversee this and other future projects on heritage conservation.

The scheme specifies that the objective is to "preserve and put historic buildings into good and innovative use through operation of social enterprises by non-profit-making organizations with a charitable status." One of the key words that underpin the whole project is "social enterprise".

"We want it to be a social enterprise instead of a business operation. The idea is to plough the income generated by the enterprise back into the society," said Jack Chan, the newly-installed Heritage Commissioner.

Everyone agrees by principle, but many tricky issues still remain.

According to Maggie Brooke, chartered surveyor and convenor of non-profit conservation group Heritage Hong Kong, one thing that the government should make a point of avoiding is to "tear a historic building from its social fabric".

"A heritage building rarely stands on its own - it is usually among a cluster of buildings of roughly the same age and its value is closely associated with the community around it," she said. "And very often, it is the small, local ones instead of big ones with city-wide or nation-wide importance that has come to benefit the community for a long time."

And here she sees the biggest challenge for anyone genuinely interested in heritage conservation.

"One of the major difficulties in revitalizing ancient buildings is that very often the building is taken out of the community and so far up the market that local people have completely lost touch with it."

She cited the Pawn in Wan Chai as an example. The building, one of the pre-war shophouses in Hong Kong, is now home to a posh pub and some high-end restaurants.

Despite the widely-applauded renovation of the building, the convenor believes that the success of the project, undertaken by the Urban Renewal Authority, has been compromised as a result.

"My definition of a social enterprise is that it is organized and run so that it benefits both the people employed by it and the people who are its customers," she said. "And both parties have to come from the local community."

One of the objectives of the current scheme is to "create job opportunities at a district level". But that only tackles one aspect of the issue. The other aspect is public accessibility, not just physical, but also mental and in many cases financial accessibility.

Heritage Hong Kong, co-founded by Brooke and her husband, has submitted a proposal for renovating the Blue House in Wan Chai. The grade one-listed building was previously a hospital but its current incarnation is a residence.

"What we are going to do is that after the renovation we'll continue to let people grow small organic mushrooms inside the courtyard or on the roof of the buildings, as they are doing now. And money made from the farming will go to benefit the farmers themselves," said Brooke.

"We'll retain the building's social-communal nature and will give employment to people who would otherwise be unemployed."

If their proposal gets underway, extra fire exits will be installed as the wooden staircase raises major concerns over fire safety.

"Of course safety is the bottom line, but it's simply not reasonable to apply the 2008 building standard to heritage renovation," she said. "When dealing with historic buildings, what we need is more thought from a creative architect and a designated set of regulations that are less stringent and offer more flexibility."

Brooke is now working hard with some concerned others to push the government to adopt a new standard that are "appropriate and set especially for heritage buildings". But leave no doubt that any measure to loosen the existing rules will ring alarm bells for skeptics who question the real purpose behind every government's move.

And that's why Brooke has been championing for the establishment of an independent trust as the ultimate organization to be in charge of heritage conservation affairs.

Currently an advisory committee has been set up to assess all the 114 proposals for the scheme and advise the Heritage Commissioner on the selection of the finalists. Bernard Chan, Chairman of the Advisory Committee, is a member of the executive and legislative council.

"Instead of using the same people over and over and over again, the government should appoint more independent professionals who are distanced from the establishment," said Brooke. "My suggestion is for the establishment of an independent national trust which is exactly what they have in lots of the Commonwealth countries."

According to her, such trust will be run by an independent committee on a subscription basis, which enables it to collect money from donation. While it would be for the benefit of the trust to maintain a good relationship with the government, the trust will be accountable to the community.

And it will decide what will be kept, what will be knocked down and who will be handed the project.

"Hong Kong people are generally wary of collusion between the government and the private sectors. And the government will always be susceptible to such accusations as long as it refuses to hand the rein to an independent body," she said.

With all that being said, it's worth noting that neither the scheme, nor the previously-launched Heritage Impact Assessment, covers privately-owned historic buildings in Hong Kong. (All government-run new capital works projects involving historic and built heritage are required to undergo a heritage impact assessment. But it is not mandatory for private projects.)

One major consideration behind the government's reluctance to take on privately-owned heritage sites is the fear of infringement on private property rights.

"Private property rights are fundamental to a capitalist society," said Chan, the Heritage Commissioner.

His office has just launched a new initiative to offer grants to owners of private graded historic buildings in need of upkeep and repair. The ceiling for each application is kept at HK$600,000.

But again, this is not compulsory. And the commissioner admitted that right now there's nothing that the government can do if the owner of a private heritage building decides to let his building languish without doing anything.

"But this is ridiculous," said Brooke. "In the UK, if your building is listed, then you cannot change any part of it without government permission. You certainly cannot pull it down. And you'll have to maintain the building, with grants provided by the government."

She suspected that the reason that the British didn't introduce the law in Hong Kong was because they didn't want populace opposing it.

But Hong Kong has undergone a sea change since then. And Brooke believes that all that the government needs to do is to ask the question.

"What are people afraid of? Losing their property? But no one has said anything about their private property being taken away," she said. "The government should go to those people and ask how much compensation they want."

And in the two rare cases that the government did ask, the response has been very positive. One case involves King Yin Lei, where the government granted an adjacent piece of land of roughly the same size to the owner, in exchange for the whole site of the historical buildings. The owner has also agreed to carry out and fully fund the restoration work under the supervision of the government.

In the other case, the Hong Kong Housing Society acquired two private property interests in the Blue House Cluster and handed the ownership to the government, which will oversee its revitalization. Affected tenants may opt to stay behind after the renovation and will form an integral part of the social network.

"These two examples show that it can be done, and it has been done in every other major city in the world," said Brooke. "Instead of reacting to individual cases, the government needs a framework, a properly thought-out policy so that they can pro-act."

"But before that, stop demolishing the buildings."

(HK Edition 10/01/2008 page4)