Questionnaire and Semi-structured Interview(Chapter 5)

This chapter of the research includes background information of survey-based questionnaire and semi-structured interview and results obtained from these two methods.

Background on an evaluation of the effectiveness of urban renewal under Urban Renewal Authority

        The Urban Renewal Authority acts as an agent to revitalize or redevelop the Hong Kong-based old buildings. This is why two officers are interviewed, and they shared their opinion regarding the effectiveness of URA and the Kwun Tong Town Center Project that are discussed in the following chapter. The name of the officers cannot be disclosed due to ethical, consent, and privacy concerns.

        The information collected through the questionnaire and the semi-structured interview is quantitative and qualitative respectively. The list of questions asked in a semi-structured interview is given in Appendix A.

Key Observations on an evaluation of the effectiveness of urban renewal under Urban Renewal Authority

    Various vital observations can be concluded and driven through the response from the questionnaire and interviews carried out in this research. The project’s major design features are an extensive consultation’s results with the community that includes landmark features of an increased open space and greening, fashionable design, commercial services, and comprehensive community as well as community-friendly features.

    The new town center can meet the grassroots’ need living in Kwun Tong, and this town center is for all classes. One crucial crucial observation driven from questionnaire and interview is that the system of area water cooling would be helpful to decrease the effect of heat island of air conditioning requirement in floor areas for hotels, officers, and shops. With the development in greening, the grey water use is desirable for irrigation of the greenery.

Challenges of the Kwun Tong Town Center Project

    Subsequently, because of the size, one of the significant problems in the Kwun Tong Town Center Project is how the negative impact could be minimized on the town center's vitality throughout the long redevelopment process. Transitional arrangement’s issues of mini-bus stations and bus terminals have been very challenging. The significant criticisms coming from advocacy groups and the community is the transparency of the project’s financial projections. While mentioned by URA from in public that URA ran the deficit risk in the project, it is considered necessary for URA from advocacy groups to disclose its financial projection’s details, and URA faced criticism that financial projections are being used as an excuse for seeking greater plot ratio. In the earlier consultation part, apart from community and district council demand to speed redevelopment project up and development density of this project has also been a concern.