1 Housing Authority park plan modifies tree-felling proposal
Scarlett Chiang, SCMP 7 April 2008

an artist’s impression of the park.

The Housing Authority has unveiled plans for a park on a 50,000 square metre site in Stanley where an earlier plan for a horticultural park was dropped in the face of protests from environmentalists.

The plan calls for replacement of about 100 trees on the site near the historic Murray Building. Under the previous plan, put forward in 2005, 550 were to have been cut down. The authority will put the tender out for contract with a scheduled completion date of March 2010.

The chief architect of the authority, Rosa Ho Lok So-fun, said the aim was to keep the tranquillity, plants and landscape of the land while providing facilities for the public.

"We want to make use of the existing platform," Mrs Ho said.

"We are not changing much of the landscape, as we will just stabilise some of the slopes and foster green management."

The site was originally tendered to the private Ding Yuen Arboriculture Foundation, which withdrew after the authority proposed to scale back the project in the face of green groups' protests over the removal of trees.

Under the latest plan, about 100 trees will be removed during slope stabilisation but they will be replaced with trees from 12 local woodland species.

The authority's senior landscape architect, Evans Iu Po-lung, said the trees to be removed were of invasive and aggressive species.

"They are not of much value from the ecological point of view. They are not attracting birds or insects."

Under planning requirements, the Housing Authority must build a park for the nearby Ma Hang public housing estate.

Tree expert Jim Chi-yung - a vocal defender of the city's trees - praised the move to replace invasive species with "more valuable trees". But he advised the authority to monitor the fertility of the soil, as the woodland species used up more organic matter than the existing trees.

He also hoped the construction company would use stones instead of concrete when making the footpaths.

Besides the trees, 12 species of butterfly will be introduced to the park's butterfly garden.

The authority proposed that the park include a butterfly garden, an observation tower near the coast and an educational path about the park's landscapes.

The area currently only has hikers' paths and lacks basic facilities.

The authority will install toilets and such security measures as closed-circuit television cameras. And there will be three entrances to the park compared with one now.

2 Sacred portrait moved in ceremony to mark start of Wong Tai Sin Temple redevelopment
Joyce Man, SCMP 7 April 2008

Wong Tai Sin Temple kicked off its expansion project by moving its patron deity icon amid gong-banging and chanting.

The 93-year-old portrait, originally from Guangzhou, will remain at the adjacent Fung Ming House for two years while Sik Sik Yuen, a religious charity that owns the temple, demolishes and expands the main platform.

As worshippers made their way through incense clouds with joss sticks and roasted pigs, Sik Sik Yuen chairman Lee Yiu-fai led about 80 temple workers to the main temple.

After much chanting and bowing, and a cleansing ritual, Mr Lee took the portrait in procession to the front square, where he positioned a magnifying glass over gold-leaf paper to light it with the Sun's rays.

Andrew Cheung Yiu-kwong, managing director of P. K. & Ng Associates contracted for the demolition work and design consulting, hit the ground with a hammer to signify the project's beginning.

Sounding their gongs, the crowd took the portrait to its temporary home, where Wong Tai Sin's faithful will be directed while the work is ongoing, and blessed the hall in an hour-long ceremony.

The revamp is complicated because part of the temple will be hollowed to build the underground Lord of the Year and Age Hall, or Huen Sun Hall. That meant the foundations would be unstable, said Mr Cheung, whose firm also revamped the Po Lin Monastery.

P. K. & Ng would use steel columns and a reinforced concrete wall to support the foundations and constantly monitor them, he said.

Demolition would begin today and end in early August. There will be a tender some time in May to choose a construction contractor.

Wong Sau-ling, 64, who has frequented the temple for over 20 years, welcomed the expansion, saying it was too crowded.

She said Wong Tai Sin was luckier than other deities because fortune tellers at the temple foresaw the dates of two milestones in her life using prediction sticks: her entry to Hong Kong from her native Fujian to meet her husband in 1962, and the birth of her first son in 1967.