1 NGOs want 77m height limit on Central Police Station project
Joyce Ng, SCMP 10 February 2009

An alliance of 13 NGOs has applied to the Town Planning Board for a 77-metre height restriction on the Central Police Station site.

The limit, if adopted, would mean the Jockey Club, which has undertaken to conserve the site, would have to almost halve the height of the controversial 150-metre structure it proposed in 2007.

The alliance, formed by green groups and heritage concern groups, said its proposal was based on a decision by the Antiquities and Monuments Office (AMO) in 2004 and on a Jockey Club architect's suggestion to respect the "open character" of the prison courtyard.

The alliance explained its proposal at a press conference yesterday.

"If the AMO considered 77 metres to be the maximum height for commercial development, it should be even more so for any development revitalised with heritage conservation first in mind," Heritage Hong Kong convenor Maggie Brooke said.

The Development Bureau said the alliance's application was "unnecessary" and a height limit would curtail design flexibility. It said the 2004 decision was made in the context of a commercial tender for redevelopment of the site, but now the Jockey Club was to conserve it on a non-profit-making basis.

Paul Zimmerman of Designing Hong Kong rejected this explanation and accused the government of double standards. He urged the public to hand in supporting comments to the Town Planning Board before February 27.

Central and Western district councillor Cheng Lai-king said she would ask the district council to support the application. Last year the Jockey Club bowed to public pressure and scrapped its plan for a 150-metre-high observation deck. It promised to reduce the height and bulk of the new structure after a six-month public consultation.

The club said yesterday its architects had only just begun to review the compound design. "As we are still in the early stages of concept design, we believe any allegation of insincere consideration of public views is unfounded," it said.

Bernard Lim Wan-fung, a member of the Antiquities Advisory Board and the Town Planning Board, said: "An arbitrary height limit would limit design flexibility, but the Jockey Club must remain sensitive to the community's concern."

He said the government should not rely solely on the Town Planning Board for design approval, as the board was not responsible for looking at a project's conservation merits.