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Olga Wong

Quinton Chan

Protection sought for Central School remains
Historic remnants unearthed at the site of the former police married quarters in Central have proved to be the remains of the 19th century Central School, fuelling calls for the site to be withdrawn from sale while a new plan for developing it is drawn up.
A government source said investigation of the granite walls and foundations unearthed by government architects in May revealed they were part of the city's first public school. The father of modern China, Sun Yat-sen, studied at Central School before it moved to the site.
Further remains have since been discovered, but details of the findings have yet to be released.
A detailed survey report will be submitted to the Antiquities Advisory Board later this month.
Board members have urged the government to withdraw the valuable Hollywood Road site - estimated to be worth almost HK$3 billion - temporarily from the land application list. They say the site's heritage must be preserved, even though  it could still be developed.
Sources close to the government said Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen would unveil policies for heritage conservation in his policy address next week, including options for preserving the school's remains and the Wan Chai Market.
A meeting of the Antiquities Advisory Board will be held on October 10, the day of the policy address.
The Planning Department has already asked that future development preserve the stone walls and cornerstones at the site that were determined to be part of the school.
But discovery of the additional remnants has made the preservation more complicated.
Central and Western District Council was told earlier that pieces of porcelain were found on the site during the excavation.
Activists hoping to have the site rezoned from residential to open space have also proved that the site once housed the city's first Shing Wong temple, which was used as a town hall in the 19th century.
Surveyor Charles Chan Chiu-kwok said that with a plot ratio of eight and gross floor area of 410,000 sq ft, the land could be sold for as much as HK$2.9 billion.
Under the government's land sale schedule, the site will be available for application in December.
Lawmaker and advisory board member Patrick Lau Sau-shing said the board should give a historical grading to remnants of the Central School as soon as possible, so that  preservation would be incorporated into land sale conditions.
He said the historic site could form a park or a community centre as compensation to local residents for the shortage of open space. 'If the scale of the historic site is not too large, a little development could be allowed. But the land use and design should be compatible with the site.'
Another advisory board member, Ng Cho-nam, said the land should be taken off the application list temporarily to allow for a new development model to be drawn up for the site.
'Developers dislike uncertainties. Everything should be clearly set out before the land is sold,' he said, adding that lower development density on the site was preferred due to the current traffic problems in Central.
The Planning Department last year proposed that only two 43-storey residential blocks be  allowed on the site, cutting the plot ratio from 12 to eight. The original plan permitted three 50-storey buildings.
Central School was founded in 1862 in Gough Street, where Sun Yat-sen was a student. It moved to Hollywood Road in 1889 and was renamed Victoria College. It  was the precursor of Queen's College, one of the city's most prestigious boys' schools, which moved to its present site in Causeway Bay in 1950.



Dig find spurs call for freeze on site