Lee Tung Street, known as the Wedding Card Street (;) by locals, was a street in Wan Chai, Hong Kong. The street was famed in Hong Kong and abroad as a centre for publishing and for the manufacturing of wedding cards and other similar items.
As part of an Urban Renewal Authority (URA) project, all interests of Lee Tung Street were resumed by and reverted to the Government of Hong Kong since 1 November 2005, and subsequently demolished in December 2007. The demolition was seen by many as causing irreparable harm to the cultural heritage of Hong Kong.
The site was redeveloped as a luxury shopping and housing development. As with all other URA projects, no original tenants have been resettled on site.
The street was known for its printing industry, and Wan Chai was a longtime host of the headquarters of the Hong Kong Times, Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po. In the 1950s, print shops began to gather in Lee Tung Street between Johnston Road and Queen's Road East. Rumours had it that the government of Hong Kong mandated this in order to easily monitor illegal publication.
The poet and translator Dai Wangshu also established a short-lived bookstore in Lee Tung Street in the early 1950s.[1]
In the 1970s, the print shops also began producing wedding invitations, lai see, fai chun, and other items, for which they became famous in the 1980s. Hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong people visited the shops there to order their wedding cards, name cards, and traditional Chinese calendars.
In 2003, the Urban Renewal Authority announced it would spend HK$3.58 billion to redevelop Lee Tung Street and McGregor Street, an area covering . According to an authority spokesman, up to the end of June 2005, more than 85 per cent of the 647 affected homeowners on Lee Tung Street had agreed to accept compensation offers of HK$4,079 per square foot. The purchase of the land was expected to be completed early 2006. The street was duly demolished starting in December 2007. In its place will stand four high-rise buildings and one underground car park, and new shops fitting in with the proposed image of the street as a "Wedding City". That means the old shops there, which were mostly small businesses and family-run, had to move elsewhere to continue operating, facing high rent and losing old customers.
On behalf of the H15 Concern Group, architect Christopher Law produced a counter-proposal known as the "Dumbbell Proposal" which would have preserved the signature six-storey tong lau in the middle part of the street. However, despite the proposal and strong protests by residents (including a three-day hunger strike by 60-year-old shop owner May Je) and other activists, the URA and the government went on to demolish the street as planned.[3]
Some of the active residents were very concerned about the H15 renewal scheme plan and later on H15 Concern Group was formed and May Yip to Mrs. Kam, the shop owners, are the active members in the concern group.[4] They, people living or doing business in the affected area, very much concerned about the loss of relationships within the community that had taken years to establish.[5] In fact, in order to tackle the dissipation of the relationship within the community, the H15 Concerns Groups proposed a Dumbbells Plan in 2005[6] and being rejected in 2007 by the Town Planning Board.[7]
Apart from the concern pertaining to the community relationship, the economic concern is also one of the worries. One of the shop owners, Mr. Luk, due to the H15 program, moved his shop from Lee Tung Street to Wan Chai Road and faced 80% decrement in business income comparing with the days when he was running his printing business in Lee Tung Street.[8] Mr. Luk is not the only one. In fact, former shop owner Ms. Chan, complained in 2016, after moving from Lee Tung Street to Tai Wong Street East, she faced 40% decrement in business income comparing with her income in bygone days in Lee Tung Street.[9]
The other economical concern is about the underestimated compensation given by URA. During the reconstruction of Lee Tung Street, the compensation given by the Urban Renewal Authority to the flat owners was $4000 per square feet. However, the selling price of a flat, after the reconstruction, in Avenue Walk is $23000 per square feet in 2013. The URA was criticized for depriving the flat owners by paying an unreasonably low compensation to the flat owner in the affected area i.e. 1.8 billion in total while Urban Renewal Authority is foreseeably gaining $3.4 billion by this project.[10]
Wan Chai District Council, in 2004 published her position paper Our Urban Renewal of Wan Chai emphasizing the following four principles. Firstly, renewal does not equal to reconstruction. It is ridiculous to demolish a community of vitality for the purpose of reconstruction. The New and the old can be able to exist in the same community. Secondly, people oriented with various choices is paramount. Respect mankind's diversity of needs and provide corresponding choices to the flat and shop owners but not long confined to monetary compensation. Thirdly, showing Appreciation to community and cultural identity. We should respect the individual's connection in the community and protect such relationship. Lastly, public participation. The affected people, due to the renewal programs, shall be able to participate in deciding the development direction, procedures and principles.[11]
In fact, Wan Chai District Council commissioned the University of Hong Kong conducting a survey. That survey showed more than 70% of people living in the affected area agreed to reconstruct the Lee Tung Street.[12] Wan Chai District Council also approved the Lee Tung Street's master layout plan as well as the plans of solving the concerning traffic problems in the affected area. The Wan Chai District Council also urged the Urban Renewal Authority starting the reconstruction work as soon as possible.[13]
According to the press release of the Progress of Lee Tung Street Project announced by the then chairman of Urban Renewal Authority Cheung Chun Yuen, the new project would take the wedding industry as the main theme of the project since the original Lee Tung Street was famous for traditional wedding industry.[14] After redevelopment, H15 Concern Groups challenged the promise that making wedding as renewal theme as chain stores and famous brand dominated the new street. Due to the expensive rent, original shop owners can hardly move back. Also, tenants have to fulfill the term that building 'First Class Shopping Premises' which designed by URA and land developer. Nothing about the wedding theme has been mentioned in the lease.[15]
URA replied that three pre-war tenement houses in the renewal project are kept for the wedding industry with Eighty-nine square meters reserved as 'Chinese and western wedding traditions museum'.[16] However, Peter Lee Siu-man from Conservancy Association criticized that no social enterprises and original shop owners should afford the monthly rent of three rebuilt tenement houses.[17]
| Lee Tung Avenue 利東街 |
In June 2013, the Urban Renewal Authority (URA) began accepting applications for new commercial tenants on the street, and formally announced the new name "Avenue Walk" (囍歡里). The Chinese name was a pun on the phrase "I Like You". This pun resulted in widespread derision.[18] Finally, Sino Land, Hopewell Holdings and URA announced the name changed to "Lee Tung Avenue" (利東街) in October 2015, using the street's old Chinese name.
On 28 November 2015, the place was reopened as an outdoor shopping boulevard with one storey of basement mall. The MTR Wan Chai station exit D was opened nearby in December 2017.
The extent to which the H15 project meets the 12 objectives spelled out in URS is set out in the table below (prescribed in the Study Report: The Achievements and Challenges of Urban Renewal in Hong Kong):[19]
| Objective | Achievements | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| a | Restructuring and re-planning designated target areas | Adopted an area-based approach based on a district base planning study - "Wan Chai Master Thinking" | |
| b | Designing more effective and environmentally-friendly local transport and road networks | Pedestrianization of Lee Tung Street and the provision of underground connection to the MTR, off-street parking and loading- unloading area. The re-provisioning of the refuse collection point and public toilets located at the junction of Cross Street and Spring Garden Lane into the site which would improve vehicular circulation along Spring Garden Lane | |
| c | Rationalizing land uses | The re-provision of refuse collection point and public toilet. | |
| d | Redeveloping dilapidated buildings into new buildings of modern standard and environmentally- friendly design | Environmentally friendly features are included, e.g. water-cooling air-conditioning, grey water recycling system, solar energy systems, etc. | |
| e | Promoting sustainable development in the urban area | Achievements in economic and environmental aspects are more obvious and less debatable. However, social aspects of sustainable development are contentious. | |
| f | Promoting the rehabilitation of buildings in need of repair | Not applicable | |
| g | Preserving buildings, sites and structures of historical, cultural or architectural interest | Three pre-war shop houses (Grade II historic buildings) within the site will be conserved and put to adaptive re-uses | |
| h | Preserving as far as practicable local characteristics | Preserve the existing streetscape by maintaining the height, scale and style of the shop-houses at street level. To retain the active street level character, the street will maintain their active mixed uses with commercial, retail, restaurant, etc. | |
| i | Preserving the social networks of the local community | This is one of the most controversial parts of the project. The efforts made by the URA include:- smaller units in the future residential towers will be designed with overall average flat size about 52m2 (GFA). Units of less than 50m2 GFA would also be provided to enhance the probability for the original residents to purchase a new and affordable flat in H15 (As to whether such flats would be affordable to the previous owner-occupiers in the future is unknown. For instance, in the J-Residence, a URA project, there were 7 transaction recorded in early 2010 before this report was written, the price ranges from $11,357/ft2 to $13,799/ft2 for flat sizes ranging from 449 to 585 ft.)- non-domestic portion of Site B is proposed to be retained for possible social enterprises or social capital projects to facilitate the preservation of the social network and building up of social capital in old Wan Chai - a 3,000m2 saleable floor area of the non- domestic portion will become a Wedding City comprising wedding themed shops where the original wedding card shops will be allowed to return, which originally occupied about 1,400 m2 of saleable floor area. Hence, the provision should be more than sufficient to cater for potential interest. However, whether shop owners would return to the redeveloped site is still unknown. | |
| j | Providing purpose-built housing for groups with special needs, such as the elderly and the disabled | A residential care home for the elderly (RCHE) cum day care unit (DCU) is included in the site area | |
| k | Providing more open space and community/welfare facilities | Public Open Space: Not less than 3,000m2 – Community facilities: Re-provisioning of refuse collection point and public toilet Welfare facilities: the RCHE cum DCU | |
| l | Enhancing the townscape with attractive landscape and urban design | Reduced site coverage via pedestrianized streets and open spaces to enable various landscaping improvement in the area, including street trees and ornamental planting to increase the amount of green space, and vertical greening to the façade of the new buildings. Set back building lines to create new plazas at Johnston Road and Queen's Road East. Enhanced pedestrian connectivity through breaking up the low rise building blocks along Lee Tung Street. |
If the redevelopment turned out to be as planned in 2010, we could safely conclude the H15 project met most of the objectives spelt out in the URS, the remaining controversial part was related to the social aspects. In terms of preservation of social network, while URA has made provisions to enhance such efforts, given the fact that all the residents and commercial operators have left the site without any existing explicit arrangement for their return, the chance of re-establishing such social network was uncertain. By 2016, as shown above in bold, some of the intended achievement were not delivered.
After the preservation of Lee Tung Street (together with the protest against the demolition of the Star Ferry and Queen's Pier and the recent controversy about the construction of Express Rail Link), the public are much more concerned on the preservation of local community, local characteristics, cultural assets and collective memories. The struggle made by H15 Concern Group and its supporters is now usually considered as one important landmark of the "new social movement", which stresses on postmaterialist values like culture and heritage. The experience in Lee Tung Street also nurtured a batch of activists in the society, most remarkably Eddie Chu, and led to more sophisticated tactics in future social movements.[20] Other issues in urban renewal, including community participatory planning, owners' participation in redevelopment, "flat-for-flat" and "shop-for-shop" compensation are all reflected in the case of the H15 project.