I wrote to you about two weeks ago asking you to support the owner’s application for Dragon Garden to rezone from green belt to “Site of Cultural Heritage”, and I’m happy to report back that over 180 positive responses were sent to the Town Planning Board, with some of your encouraging words sent to me. I thank you for that. As a comparison, only 34 support letters were sent to TPB in 2006 while I was trying to save Dragon Garden from its sale to a developer. It seems that progress is being made in the last four years.

Unfortunately, I am disappointed to report that the owners (my Uncle and Auntie) decided to suddenly withdraw the rezoning application during the public consultation period, for fear that the rezoning would lessen their chances of building new facilities in the garden. 

Thus, the last four years has taught me that heritage conservation in Hong Kong is only in its infancy, lagging way behind other world cities. Although the HK Government has made some headways since 2008 with the Revitalization Scheme for the conservation and management of some public heritage buildings (i.e. Blue House), private heritage has only been dealt with on a case-by-case basis under the "economic incentive" scheme, (i.e. King Yin Lei on Stubbs Road). There is no ideal model to open a large cultural heritage site such as Dragon Garden to benefit the public. Private owners are left on their own to come up with solutions.

Whether I will be successful in helping the owners make Dragon Garden a sound model of heritage conservation for private heritage remains to be seen. Although I may not have the right solutions that can satisfy all stakeholders, I can say that I am at least aware of what the ‘issues’ are facing private owners, the public and government.

Therefore, I will be concentrating my energy in the next few months on discussing the topic of how private heritage could be opened to the public, and encouraging the community to examine the issues of private property rights, self-sustainability, funding for capital works and maintenance, government policy, public access and enjoyment, and various related issues. 

I hope you will continue to support my heritage conservation efforts, despite the ups and downs, since adversity only helps bring out the core issues—ones which need to be openly discussed by the public—if we all want to make Hong Kong a better place to live.

Respectfully Yours,