Why does citizen participation fail?

in the case of the Yuen Long Nullah

GSSS Summer Programme Social Policies & the Urban Fabric
31 July 2016

Community development is certainly not work done by one body. It requires community
knowledge and willingness to function properly (De Graaf, Van Hulst & Michels 2015). There
will be conflicts when more than one opinion is voiced, and we must proceed through all
the arguments. In a society with so much diversity, it is getting more and more difficult. In
this essay, I will introduce a case in the town I am currently living in. I believe that it
illustrates a general picture of what community development or urban planning is like in
Hong Kong nowadays. I will also try to argue that the citizen participation in Hong Kong is
not enough.
Yuen Long is one of the New Towns in Hong Kong. It used to be a rural area for the
agriculture industry. To deal with the population boom, the Hong Kong government decided
to turn the area into a more residential and commercial based town. Population in Yuen
Long has therefore been growing for decades, and the government also has plans to further
boost population in Yuen Long (Fung 2014). Therefore, a proposal for building a footbridge
along Yuen Long Town Nullah between West Rail Long Ping Station and Kau Yuk Road had
been suggested in 2008 by the HKSAR government ( Policy Address 2008).
A brief view on Yuen Longs crowded situation
News Magazine: Across The Footbridge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mwKAU_pKwE (Starting from 11:53)

Overview on the various proposal throughout the year

2013 first design

A zig-zag shape footbridge design was proposed. It was criticized for being too big, blocking
the view and affecting ventilation. It does not fit well with the overall aesthetic of the
streets (News Magazine: Across The Footbridge 2016).
Second design

The footbridge became straight and direct to fulfill the needs of citizen wanting a faster way
of transportation (News Magazine: Across The Footbridge 2016; On.cc 2015).
Last design 2016
It was changed to lighter material due to discovery of soil problems among the nullah (News
Magazine: Across The Footbridge 2016; On.cc 2015).

Four institutes consist of professionals have been invited to make proposals during the
process. They are the Hong Kong Institute of Architects, Hong Kong Institute of Urban
Design, Hong Kong Institute of Planners, and the Hong Kong Institute of Landscape
Architects. Within a year, they came up with an alternative suggestion:

to make use of the riverbank instead of building a footbridge. A similar successful case is
Cheonggyecheon in Seoul (Apple Daily 2015). This plan has been turned down with the
reason of not direct enough.

Cheonggyecheon, an example of successful transformation.

Another alternative plan of land resumption has also been proposed by one of the district
councilors as many shops in Yuen Long has been using the land. However, when the
suggestion was given to the bureau, the reply was it has only been done for roads. (News
Magazine: Across The Footbridge 2016; On.cc 2015).
There are two main opposite voices in this project if we look at it in a simple way. One side
is the government and the district council that support building the footbridge. Another side
is the professionals (and the media) that disagree with building it. It is debatable whether
which side are the general public in. Either way, it is very clear that the general public do not
really have a say in this match. There are many reasons for this low level of citizen
participation. I will try to explain them one by one.
First of all, the legitimacy of representative democracy is doubted. In this case, it was the
representatives that voiced out the needs of the citizens. This was where the idea of
building a footbridge came in. However, almost no one noticed the public engagement
exercise the government has been doing. It was not until the proposal was set and ready,
and the media started reporting it so heavily, the people started to react negatively on it. It
implies that the representatives in the first place were not representative enough. In fact,
almost 90% of the district council is from the pan-establishment camp. This may explain why
they are not against the plans of the government. In Yuen Long, most of the representatives
are the powerful indigenous residents that own lands, and they can be directly benefited in
this project. This may affect the representativeness of citizens. (News Magazine: Across The
Footbridge 2016; Michels & De Graaf 2010; Oriental Daily 2009). This structure of

representative democracy hinders the participation of citizens. How can the citizens voice
out their opinions when they are not even enabled to? (De Graaf, Van Hulst & Michels 2015)
The authenticity of public engagement in this project is another issue to be explored. There
were three stages of public engagement exercise. The first stage includes focus group
meetings with different stakeholders, including owners committees within the study area,
public transport operators, transport-related trade associations, trade associations
representing local business and members of Yuen Long District Council (YLDC) and street
surveys. An engineering consultant was invited to investigate on the pedestrian
environment of Yuen Long Town (Legislative Council Panel on Transport 2011; Oriental Daily
2009).
The second stage involves two publics forum for public discussion. Issues such as possible
problems on the environment caused by the project and the proposed schemes. About 120
people including members of YLDC, representatives of public transport operators,
representatives of residents group of Yuen Long, representatives of owners committees
were there (Legislative Council Panel on Transport 2011). The idea of having a footbridge
throughout the town and more suggestions on improvements were proposed by the public.
The third stage was not mentioned in the document (Legislative Council Panel on Transport
2011).
Despite all the public engagements going on, many of the citizens were shocked after the
final plan was announced to wait for approval in the Legislative Council. Citizens report
feeling like the government does not really listen to their feedback (News Magazine: Across
The Footbridge 2016; On.cc 2015;31
2015). If the people are not responded to, they do not have urge to participate(De
Graaf, Van Hulst & Michels 2015). The media has been reporting about this project from
time to time, and some banners concerning this project from the district council can also be
seen hanging in the street, but the government itself had seldom initiated anything large
scale to collect public opinions. It seems only a small portion of the citizens were really
asked to participate (De Graaf, Van Hulst & Michels 2015).
The government has not been doing a good job organizing all the information and
procedures properly either, hindering the whole process.
There is another project of revitalizing the nullah going on simultaneously but the
government does not seem to have high awareness on how to incorporate two projects
together or at least to avoid any conflicts (Environmental Impact Assessment Ordinance
2013).
The discovery of the spaces in the soil under the nullah was not until after the second design
was published. More investigation should be carried out in early phases to avoid such
mistakes. This had led to delay of the project (News Magazine: Across The Footbridge 2016).
Due to this discovery, the cost of the whole project is still unknown. However, the plan had
already been approved by the district council. Meaning it is very possible that the plan is
going to be set even without knowing the actual cost of building it.

There was a footbridge design workshop that consisted of members of district council and
government representatives. Over 40 suggestions were propose, including some absurd
ones: bird watching zone, stargazing zone, organic agriculture zone, small aquarium with
goldfish on the footbridge, even a suggestion of bungee jump facility (News Magazine:
Across The Footbridge 2016). It has been feared that public participation may lead to
dangerous recommendations. This is exactly the case except that the participation was only
done by the representatives (Michels & De Graaf 2010).
Moreover, the issue of sustainability does not seem to be a big concern for the government.
As building such a huge installation in the middle of the town is irreversible, the government
should really collect more data from the environment and the people before setting it in
stone. All these reckless actions are done without the acknowledgement of the local
citizens.
People have really bipolar views on the issue. The two parties are looking at it from a
different perspective. The professionals and some of the locals are looking at it from the
perspective of urban planning, aesthetic, culture and the people. The architects think that
building a footbridge is not just building something, it is also changing the entire
community and its lifestyle. Walking on a footbridge is a point-to-point travel, but walking
on the ground is a journey full of interaction with the community. Also, building the
footbridge would block the view, and it is hard to incorporate such an artificial installation
into the environment. The aesthetic of this project was doubted. Yuen Long was a rural
town, the culture is very on the ground. Interaction between people and the land was
emphasized. Building this footbridge means changing the street culture. (Jacobs 1961; News
Magazine: Across The Footbridge 2016;31
2015).
On the other hand, the local district council thinks that the first priority is to fix the practical
issue of over-crowdedness. They also know that it has been more than 8 years since the
project was first proposed so they want to finish it as quick as possible. They also mention it
is the opinion of the local citizens (News Magazine: Across The Footbridge 2016).
This situation is very much what is happening in Hong Kong. The problem here is the social
division. Different voices need to be accepted and digested by the government. At the same
time, it is almost impossible to satisfy everyones needs. Especially when its difficult to tell
which party is more populated. In this case, real democracy can hardly be achieved, not to
mention civil participation.
What is bipolar is not just peoples opinions but also their reaction to social issues. There are
great differences between different groups of people depending on their age, socioeconomic background, ethnicity etc. People in Hong Kong are either indifferent or radical to
social and political issues. This causes a scenario which the radical ones become dominant.
This leads to more conflicts and they continue other social topics and cannot be resolved.
People are often indifferent because they are not connected to a social group (Michels & De
Graaf 2010). Hong Kong is sometimes a very individualistic society; people are involved in
their own business only. Different groups have no chance of interacting with each other and
sharing their opinions sensibly.

There is still a long way to go for Hong Kong to achieve a high degree of citizen participation.
This is also the same for democracy. Only if all the stakeholders start changing their way of
treating policy-making, there is a chance for us to see the light of it. What Hong Kong needs
now is more social cohesion so that different voices can be heard, and also implemented
peacefully. Until then, any attempts of citizen partition would just be a hoax or ends up in
chaos.

Bibliography
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