Assessing the publicness of the public open space in private developments (POSPD) in Hong Kong

Abstract

“Publicness” as the fundamental value of the urban public space, plays an important role to promote the quality of public space as well as highlight the values of fairness and justice in the social development. Since public open space in private development (POSPD) has been introduced to Hong Kong a new type of public space, this approach has been questioned by the public as it affects the rights of the public to enjoy the open space. So with the increasing development and decreasing public open space, it is urgent to review the quality of POSPD as well as assess the publicness of POSPD for future provision.

The study aims to generate an assessment of the publicness of public open space in private development (POSPD) in Hong Kong. In a way approaching to overseas attempts in assessing the publicness, the dissertation would like to fill the gap in assessing the publicness of POSPD in Hong Kong. Except for key concepts reviewed for generating better understanding, the study also conduct an evaluation of general features of POSPD in Hong Kong as well as a questionnaire survey on public’s aspirations. The degree of publicness also measured through five case studies for getting insights of the real practices. It is concluded that the degree of publicness varies a lot in different functional areas. POSPDs in commercial and office development project commonly show a higher degree of publicness than in residential development project. The differences are mainly presented in aspects of physical configuration, control and civility. And there is still a disparity between the real practices and the public’s aspirations on the POSPD.

In related with the outcomes, issues diminishing the publicness of POSPD and corresponding recommendations are attributed to three aspects, design, management and institutional and policy perspectives. It is recommended that in the future provision of POSPD, issues are supposed to be overcome by concerning the public needs in the process of design, adopting people-oriented approach and searching for “win-win” approach in the management as well as improving the governance and regulatory control mechanism.