A win-win situation or a zero sum game? : review on the use of transfer of development rights for built heritage conservation in Hong Kong

Abstract

There has been an increasing public concern on built heritage conservation management in Hong Kong so that the government has to explore different conservation methods suitable for Hong Kong’s built heritage. In its 2007 policy address, the government has identified the alarming risk of demolition of historic buildings in the private domain. In order to encourage private historic buildings to retain their buildings for conservation to preserve the unique cultures in Hong Kong, the government adopted the approach of transfer of development rights to achieve the conservation objective. The transfer of development rights can exist in various forms and the ones that are more widely known in Hong Kong include in-situ and non in-situ land exchange and the transfer of unused development rights. The basic principle for the transfer of development rights is to transfer the development potential of the historic building site (sending site) to another site (receiving site) which aims at conserving the building over the sending site while relaxing the development control on the receiving site as the compensation for the owner. In this dissertation, there will be a general overview on the development of built heritage conservation in Hong Kong to serve as brief background information to understand the current situation regarding built heritage conservation in Hong Kong. Three case studies, representing projects in 3 different form of transfer of development rights, were carried out to investigate and compared in the aspects of environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and social sustainability. The dissertation will also conclude the key factors for the success in the use of the transfer of development rights in built heritage conservation and the constrains.