The Hong Kong Institute of Planners says the goal of transforming Hong Kong into a carbon neutral city is only achievable once government legislatively cleans house.
In May this year the Hong Kong Institute of Planners (HKIP) hosted an international conference on ‘planning for no carbon cities’ in Hong Kong to mark their 30 anniversary.

The event saw a wide range of stakeholders attend, including government bodies, academics, professionals and business representatives from Hong Kong, mainland China and farther afield, all of whom were keen to exchange ideas and experiences on how to plan, design and build low carbon cities. It was co-organised by with the Urban Planning Society of China, while the Royal Town Planning Institute and the Macao Urban Planning Institute were the Partner Organizations.

The goal of carbon neutral planning is to reduce the carbon emissions of cities by reducing energy use wherever possible, especially in the building and transportation sectors, using renewable energy sources and offsetting
carbon dioxide emissions by purchasing carbon credits particularly through tree planting.
But while the conference may have struck a chord in terms of timing and the ground swell of support for green initiatives, it also brought to light some of the major difficulties city planners face when tabling reduced carbon projects in Hong Kong. Chief amongst these is the clash between the changing needs of the city and antiquated legislation, according to Po-yiu Tam and Peter Cookson Smith, the president and vice-president of the HKIP respectively.

New Town Hangover

The problem stems from when many of the construction laws and the bodies that police them were set up. “The Housing Authority traces its origins to the great fire at Shek Kip Mei in the 1950s, when the government felt compelled to enter the housing market to cope with the influx of refugees,” said Tam.

“Legislatively, this reach was extended with the New Town program, which was aimed at accommodating a lot of people very quickly.” It also meant the precedence was given to simply putting tower blocks up, rather than planning
them effectively. And unfortunately, while the need for large amounts of accommodation has diminished since then as Hong Kong’s population stabilised, the legislation that enabled it has remained static.

This has effectively left planners wrestling with miles of red tape, while developers take advantage of the expedient permissions process to sidestep the bureaucracy. The planning problem has been exacerbated by the fragmented nature of Hong Kong’s government departments, which operate individually rather than in a cohesive manner. What is more, these problems are not limited to carbon neutral projects, but have also mired sustainable planning initiatives such as the development of Victoria Harbour, redevelopment of Kai Tak airport, Hong Hum Peninsula and West Kowloon Cultural Centre to name but a few.

“The very thing that makes Hong Kong as a society so attractive is the way it works, and it is the very thing that makes it so frustrating in terms of getting things done. You only need to have one guy complaining and government tends to back down,” said Cookson Smith. This in effect means that town planners have very little influence over the process once developers have bought a piece of property, and organisation such as Plan D (which is responsible for planning standard and guidelines in Hong Kong), are then rendered effectively toothless.

“The problem with carbon in Hong Kong is essentially from buildings, and their emissions. It is the result of intense building volumes,” said Cookson Smith, citing an example of how the city’s convoluted processes are negatively impacting its ability to limit carbon emissions. “It arises out of the old problem of plot ratio maximisation, where commercial blocks in the city are allowed to cover a largest percent of their sites, so you get square blocks with the largest floor space possible.”

This has resulted in large development walls, which block airflow through urban areas, and becomes a vicious circle because these building and their surrounds then have to consume more energy to cool themselves, and thereby
putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

“In the UK there are tiers of development control, and some might say there are too many. But here it is a totally different situation. There is no design or development control,” said Cookson Smith. “The developers can do
anything they want. Once they have bought that site and they accord with zoning the only thing they have to meet is building regulations. And you cannot tell a developer that he can’t put in whatever he wants to put in.”

This then leaves the responsibility for reducing carbon emissions solely at the feet of building owners, who have to implement expensive measures such as curtain wall insulation to reduce their carbon footprint. Organisations such as Hong Kong Beam (Building Environmental Assessment Method) and government’s Cepas (Comprehensive Environmental Performance Assessment Scheme for Buildings) initiative monitor and encourage this through a green grading system for buildings, but without legislative mandate there is no onus on any developer or owner to comply.

In addition, environmental efforts on the micro-level to build greener buildings are not sufficient to make significant dents into the overall carbon footprint of a city, and only cease to be window dressing when done on a comprehensive scale.

Conclusion

So is it all doom and gloom when it comes to carbon emission reduction in Hong Kong? The answer according to Cookson and Tam is an emphatic “no”.

Firstly they point out that Hong Kong is already a green city to some extent, with 75 percent of its land still undeveloped. In addition, a number of green energy projects, such as a wind farm in Sai Kung are expected to get the
go ahead in the near future, indicating that things are changing within the halls of power. This is being helped by a new generation of environmentally conscious citizens who are making their voices heard when it comes to new
projects, and are also finding their way into Hong Kong’s legislative and private apparatus.

Also, a number of bodies and symposia have emerged recently to encourage private and public sector participation in many of the planning issues facing Hong Kong. The Urban Design Alliance is one example, and events such as
the HKIP conference are another.

In fact, HKIP itself is made up of representatives from government and the private sector: Cookson Smith is a director of Urbis, a planning and urban design consultancy, while Tam is the assistant director of technical services
for the Hong Kong Government’s Planning Department.

“We are planners, we can always juggle, we’re a jack of all trades,” concluded Tam.