A new, alternative plan might save the Graham Street market after all, writes Winnie Yeung

Last July, the long overdue plan to redevelop the Graham and Peel streets market in Central was finally released by the Urban Renewal Authority (URA).

But instead of plans to redevelop the area while retaining the market’s operation and unique character, it showed almost a total demolition of the existing buildings to give way to four high rises, with only a token gesture toward saving the oldest street market in Hong Kong.

In a nutshell, the URA’s plan was to sell off the bulk of the land to developers for two residential buildings, a 26-storey hotel and a 32-storey office complex, while turning the remaining land into a green area. The stalls down the middle of Graham and Peel streets were to be allowed to continue trading while the buildings on either side were to be demolished. It was an utterly impractical plan and, predictably, it caused uproar with numerous demonstrations held by local pressure group High and Dry. How, protesters wanted to know, were the market stalls meant to continue operating amid all that construction? Veteran Central and Western district councilor Kam Nai-wai said it best: “Honestly, I don’t see how it can be done.”
And neither did architects Oren Tatcher and Sujata Govada. So they got together with street market concern group World City Committee to come up with an alternative plan. Due to be submitted to the Town Planning Board on February 1, it’s a more sensitive treatment of the redevelopment, which, they believe, would rejuvenate the area without large-scale demolition and allow the hawkers to keep trading.
“It’s obvious that the current plan is terribly outdated,” Tatcher says. “The total wipeout, followed by one single redevelopment is a concept from the west that was used 50 years ago, which has been long considered inappropriate for city regeneration.”
However, they’ve got an uphill battle. The Town Planning Board has already accepted the URA’s proposal and the acquisition of 361 property interests in 37 old buildings began in October. Once that’s complete, the demolition can go ahead (with only four pre-war buildings preserved) and we might see the end of the market within two years.
Tatcher says that, ideally, he would have liked to see the area evolve organically, without any major demolition. Now, however, this is obviously unrealistic. So instead, Tatcher and Govada come up with a plan that makes concessions to the developers while retaining the character of the area. They propose to build two high rises at the corners of the site on the corners of Gage and Cochrane streets, and Gage and Peel streets, which would retain more than 30 old buildings at the heart of the district.
Tatcher explains that these old buildings would be auctioned off in phases, with the provision that no single buyer could purchase too many buildings so preventing the mass destruction of the area. A further stipulation would be that each building must retain shop space on the ground floor; currently, such spaces are rented by the hawkers as storage for the market stalls. After the auction, the new owners could either refurbish the buildings, or demolish them in favor of the “toothpick-width” high rises that are typical of Central.
“The idea is to retain the market’s original fabric,” Govada says. “What is unique about Central is its diversity – and that’s what the market is about too. And diverse ownership could help retain exactly that.”
After the World City Committee, headed by Jay Forster, Lindsay Robertson and Amil Khan, submit their proposal to the Town Planning Board on February 1, they must wait to see if it will be accepted for review. If - and it’s a big if - that happens, it will be open for public consultation for three weeks before the board has a meeting to decide whether or not to accept the plan (see box, right). Hawkers’ opinions will also be collected. “So far most hawkers would prefer to stay in Graham and Peel streets if there is an alternative approach that allows them to do so,” Robertson says.
Tatcher says he has drafted this plan because the World City Committee wants reach a compromise with the URA. “They should continue the buyout and compensate the property owners there because they have been waiting for more than a decade now,” he says. “So we want to make our plan viable. We would not be killing off the URA scheme completely, but we’re showing the stakeholders that there are other ways to regenerate this area and retain the market.”