Local Arts News: ‘minor’ arts hub expansion approved - SCMP (15-11-2014) CITY1 | CITY | development | By Fanny W. Y. Fung and Olga Wong Town planning board expresses concern about scale of change to construction density, but approves it anyway, attaching six conditions A proposal to increase the construction density of the West Kowloon arts hub has been approved with six conditions, amid doubts over a claim that only “minor” amendments to the previous plan were being sought. Under the revised plan, the maximum total gross floor area of the 41-hectare site will be increased by 15 per cent, to 851,400 square metres from 740,350. Floor areas for the two usage categories of cultural use and hotel, office and residential space will each rise by 15 per cent. The increase in cultural space will come in the form of auxiliary facilities such as hostels for visiting artists. No corresponding expansion of the public open space area is proposed. The new plan was first announced by the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority in July last year. It told lawmakers that the extra floor area would help both the project’s budget and Hong Kong’s housing shortage. But Town Planning Board members raised doubts over the change. They said new high-rise buildings might affect views of Kowloon’s ridgeline and increase traffic. And they said the plan lacked measures to mitigate the larger buildings’ effect on the area’s air flow. “There is not a precise definition of a ‘minor relaxation’ and we would normally be asked to examine the merits of relaxing restrictions on some buildings,” board member Dominic Lam Kwong-ki said at the meeting. “But this application is about a generic increase in plot ratio in the whole area.” He said that if what the authority wanted was a generic relaxation of building restrictions, it might be more appropriate to seek an amendment of the area’s outline zoning plan. If there was a need for particular buildings to have more floor space, they should be considered on a case-by-case basis, Lam said. Other members also queried why the building density of the whole West Kowloon Cultural District should be increased. “What is the ground for a wholesale increase?” Clarence Leung Wang-ching asked. “Why is a general expansion needed? Why can’t we keep the original parameters?” Home Affairs Bureau project manager Sorais Lee Kwan Siu-kuen responded: “By increasing the gross floor area, we hope to provide more space for arts development, like hostels for visiting artists, performance rehearsal venues and space for innovative designs by young artists.” The board approved the application conditionally, requiring the authority to satisfy it or the relevant government departments on six matters before the new plan could go ahead. It must submit a revised landscape concept plan that illustrates the provision of public open space and green coverage in the arts hub, a revised air-flow plan, studies on car park usage arrangements and the demand for its proposed green transport system and a fire services facility plan. Also, it must not build any rooftop structures that would damage the continuity of the ridgeline. Former board member Ng Cho-nam, a geography professor at the University of Hong Kong, warned the arts hub authority the approval given by the board might have set a bad precedent for developers in future. He said the board, in exercising its discretion to give extra floor space to an approved project, needed a clear definition of a “minor relaxation” in restrictions, and how to calculate it. Board members “in the past have a consensus that the relaxation is limited to a figure less than 10 per cent of a building’s floor areas”, Ng said. “Now you are talking about 15 per cent of a 40-hectare site; it’s definitely not minor,” he said. “If the board rejects a developer using the same trick in future, it will result in a judicial review.”
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 14:43:39 +0000
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