The beating retreat of No. 8 police station: a critical review on its heritage impact assessmentimplementation

Abstract

The nature of values is explored in the aspects of law, property rights, town planning, environmental management, sustainable development, and conservation economics. The findings are roughly grouped as non-calculus and calculus approach for easy discussion. Each interpretation has its own complex but different theoretical basis on values. But a more convincing approach is enlightened by Cheung’s idea on transaction costs, in which many options for conservation are possible but the option with the least transaction costs is the most preferred. Lai’s idea on relationship between conservation and sustainability has provided a theoretical framework on the recent R-scheme, which opens a new way of conservation echoed with Cheung’s idea. The idea of conserving for public interest is explored, and found that the idea is not well tested because of the vague definition. In deciding actions on conservation, a clearer understanding on the relative gain and loss on each option can help to make a more sensible choice. The situation of both international and local HIA implementation was reviewed, and found that despite HK is becoming an important laboratory for HIA, the theoretical basis for HIA is inadequate. A critical review or audit on HIA implementation is conducted. It was found that the HK HIA mechanism is in lack of legitimate support, and may become another piece of bureaucratic procedure. Continuous evaluation on HIA implement throughout the whole processes is important.