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1.
Policy review on heritage sites is
long overdue, say experts
1. Policy review on heritage sites is long overdue, say experts
AGNES
LAM, SCMP 14 June 2004
Laws
on heritage conservation should be reviewed to make it easier to
preserve valuable buildings, experts in the field said yesterday.
Louis
Ng Chi-wah, executive secretary of the Antiquities and Monuments
Office, said there was a need to amend the heritage conservation
policy and to draw up clearer guidelines for defining certain buildings
as monuments.
"We
should have a better mechanism and [clearer] criteria for declaring
a building to be a monument," he told RTHK's City Forum radio
programme.
"Should
architectural features and special design be included [as criteria]
as well? Should the site of buildings be considered too?" he
asked.
"A
building can be part of our collective memory [even] though it does
not have a long history. We need to have more guidelines for defining
a monument."
The
government conducted a public consultation about heritage conservation
this year. About 400 submissions were received.
Lister
Cheung Lai-ping, chief executive officer of the Conservancy Association,
was also on the radio programme. She urged the government to show
a genuine commitment.
"The
government has talked about what should be done and said it is committed
to saving heritage from modern development, but it has not done
anything," she said.
She
cited the case of the historic King Yin Lei mansion in Stubbs Road,
saying the government should use it as an opportunity to show the
public that it can turn words into action.
"The
government should think about increasing the manpower of the Antiquities
and Monuments Office, so that they can speed up the reviewing process,"
she said.
The
owner of the mansion has put it up for sale and it is expected to
sell for $500 million. Heritage groups fear it will be demolished
to make way for luxury homes.
King
Yin Lei, a 25,000 sq ft house in Mid-Levels, was featured in Hollywood
films Soldier of Fortune (1955) and Love is a Many Splendored Thing
(1955).
There
are 78 declared monuments in Hong Kong, of which 60 are historic
buildings.
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