香港城市发展上的新地标——“西九龙”海滨文娱艺术新区规划评价

西九龙40 hm2的填海造地重新规划为香港未来文娱艺术区可追溯到1994年,当时政府意向在维多利亚港这块海滨宝地建造一个重点体育馆和一个大型的海滨公园。1999年香港新机场的设计建筑师诺曼·福斯特设计的一个平均高达120m,覆盖面积为20hm2的“天篷”赢取了政府为此新规划举办的概念设计比赛。2004年底,政府宣布了最后招标的3个入围发展财团,2005年中将决定最终中标者。自此香港公众开始质疑此大型滨海发展被单一发展财团控制,及未来30年文化活动依赖于房地产收益的可行性。而政府对于这重点的发展未提供有效控制的规划条例,也成为公众批评的重点。这篇文章主旨在介绍此高度争议项目的背景及公众主要争议的内容。

A CRITICAL LOOK AT THE WESTERN KOWLOON WATERFRONT DEVELOPMENT

The rezoning of the Western Kowloon 40hectares reclaimed land to become the future HongKong cultural and exhibition district dates back a fulldecade to 1994 when a major sport stadium with ahuge public park were to be built on this prime waterfront of Victoria Harbour. In 1999 Norman Foster, thearchitect for the new Hong Kong Chek Lap Kok Airport,won the government competition with the conceptualdesign of a gigantic 'sky canopy' average 120M inheight and covers 20 hectares in area. In late 2004 thegovernment announced the three finalist tenderconsortiums with an anticipation to move on to thefinal award of tender in 2005. The Hong Kong public hassince questioned intensely the viability of such avaluable piece of waterfront development being totallycontrolled by a single development consortium for 30years and the future cultural activities dependant onthe ultimate real estate proceeds. The lack of adequategovernment planning and zoning guidelines efficientlycontrolling such mega development were also broughtunder the microscope. This article is meant to give ageneral background to this highly contested publicproject and the major controversies being debated.