Revitalization of industrial buildings in Hong Kong : evaluation and prospect

Abstract

Industrial activities in Hong Kong has been gradually reducing due to economic restructuring over the past decades. We can expect in the future that, though a certain level of industrial activities may remain, the previous era will never come back to Hong Kong again. Tertiary industry plays the main role in the contemporary Hong Kong economy. The shrinkage of secondary industry has resulted in under-utilization or illegal use of industrial floor space. In spite of a large quantity of lands rezoned by Government, traditional regions such as Kwai Chung and Kwun Tong still have excessive industrial area that had no longer been used as production activities. In order to speed up the better use of these floor space and release its potential for current Hong Kong’s economy, the Government launched a revitalization policy in 2010 that might partially relieve the heavy cost required for converting an existing obsolete industrial buildings into other uses, or offered financial assistance to redevelopment projects. The market showed an active response to the revitalization policy over the past several years, and a number of industrial buildings had undergone revitalization and changed to other uses. The Government announced the suspension of the policy from 1 April 2016 onwards so as to preserve adequate space for the remaining industrial and other related activities in Hong Kong. It is now the appropriate time to evaluate the effectiveness of the policy enforced for 6 years from various perspectives, and more importantly, whether or not the policy shall continue in the future and, if applicable, whether we shall revise the policy. For this purpose, observations were made to traditional industrial regions, and some parties in relation to the policy had been interviewed. It was observed that industrial areas are under rapid transformation to commercial areas these years. Newly established commercial developments, commercial land sale from Government, and tens of revitalized buildings in accordance with the revitalization policy are the three ways driving the transformations in those areas. An investment group, having several industrial buildings being revitalized, expressed that this policy speeded up the conversion of under-utilized industrial buildings into better alternative uses, in particular most of these buildings are situated at superior locations in close vicinity of commercial and residential areas. Users are directly benefited as more options are available. From their perspective, the policy also provided business opportunities. Nevertheless, now it may still be a good time for the society to adapt to the changes. District councilor, being the person familiar with district affairs, indicated that more job opportunities may be available as a result of increased commercial activities, but on the other hand, original users encountered difficulties during relocation. It conformed to the statements from an interviewed artists. Fortunately, some revitalized buildings provide certain subsidies to artists as a kind of relief, as the following sections describe.

This dissertation concludes with a positive evaluation of the policy with recommendations, possibly suitable for policy implementations in future.