His property is on a 3.9km strip that used to be the airport runway. It is part of the 320-hectare Kai Tak Development, which is quarter the size of the city’s Central and Western district, and eight times bigger than the West Kowloon Cultural District.

Ambitious plans for the area drawn up 15 years ago envisioned a bustling residential and commercial district with green spaces, and a sports and leisure hub that would draw Hongkongers and visitors alike.

The project was expected to take shape from 2013, but was hit by delays made worse when the economy was affected first by the social unrest of 2019 and then the Covid-19 pandemic.

Kai Tak Development has also gone through multiple planning changes since the 1990s.

Adding to its original sports and tourism theme, the government announced in 2011 that it would be branded with the rest of East Kowloon as a premier second business district, Hong Kong’s “CBD2”.

A review in 2016 increased building density to help address the city’s severe housing crunch, allowing 49,900 homes for 134,000 people, a 28 per cent increase. Gross commercial floor area was also raised by 17 per cent to 330,000 square metres (3.6 million sq ft).

With the rezoning of several commercial sites for housing that followed, Kai Tak’s latest estimated total population became 158,000.

The vision was altered, but the project is still a long way from completion.

At the tip of the runway, Hong Kong’s cruise terminal which opened in 2013 has been closed, with stringent Covid-19 restrictions putting an end to cruise operations for now. Next to it, where a “tourism node” with hotels, restaurants and shops was supposed to rise, a large new Covid-19 isolation facility opened this month.

At the opposite end of the runway, a mega sports park with a 50,000-seat main stadium was due to open next year, but now will not be ready until 2024 at the earliest.

Hong Kong Covid isolation site at Kai Tak ‘to be used for temporary housing’

So far, three public housing projects and at least 12 private developments have been completed, with people living there for several years now. More than a dozen housing sites remain under construction, and several more plots are yet to be sold by the government.

Three commercial developments, including a prime office complex and 19-storey “twin towers” with department stores, entertainment facilities and restaurants, are nearing completion. A few more commercial sites have not yet been sold.

A star public transport feature, a monorail connecting the entire area, has been dropped for technical and cost reasons.

The area is served by Kai Tak and Sung Wong Toi MTR stations on the new Tuen Ma line connecting it to Hong Kong Island and the New Territories.

But homebuyer Ho said the Kai Tak MTR station was more than 2km away and inaccessible from his place because of construction work, and he must drive or take a 30-minute walk to reach Kowloon Bay station.

Estate agents told him he could move in earlier than next March as scheduled, but he was not sure as transport was not ready.

“I bought my property here because I had confidence in Hong Kong’s future,” said Ho, who works in the financial industry. “I imagined Kai Tak to be a place not just for residents, but also a focal point for everyone in Hong Kong, a world-class attraction, something we can be proud of. But now I wonder when this will happen.”

Vincent Ng Wing-shun, a former president of the Institute of Architects, said Kai Tak had deviated much from the original plans.

Referring to the new isolation centre and the rezoning of commercial sites to build homes, he said: “Because of its convenient location, Kai Tak has often been an expedient solution for the government whenever it needed land for ad hoc, urgent purposes.

“But where is the green CBD2 with sports and tourism we once envisioned? Now it looks more like a residential area than anything else.”

Rezoning ‘takes away commercial vibe’

Three areas stand out when analysts question if the Kai Tak Development has strayed too far from the early vision – the reduction of commercial sites, the delay in developing its tourism-related facilities, and the scrapping of the monorail.

Over the years, four commercial sites on the runway were rezoned for housing, leaving only three remaining. A few others along Prince Edward Road East were also changed. Some government-use sites near Kowloon Bay were rezoned for commerce to make up for the loss, but they were far from railway stations.

Market analysts have said the changes diminish the appeal of Kai Tak and its role in CBD2, but the government has maintained there is sufficient new commercial space in the entire area including Kwun Tong and Kowloon Bay – 1 million square metres (10.8 million sq ft) in future, on top of the existing 2.9 million square metres (31.2 million sq ft) – to keep East Kowloon a core business district comparable to Central.

Lau Chun-kong, managing director at real estate agency Colliers Hong Kong, noted that the land use was changed after developers’ bids for some sites did not meet the government’s reserve price during the economic downturn.

While he did not think the rezoning would affect the overall commercial space supply much, he felt it took away from Kai Tak’s business vibe.

“It is a blow to the future CBD2 development of Kai Tak and Kowloon East,” he said.

Lau added that the actual supply of commercial space in Kwun Tong and Kowloon Bay would depend on whether old industrial buildings there could be repurposed as office blocks or redeveloped, although owners would have to take the initiative to obtain approval before those changes could happen.

Covid facility ‘only temporary’

When the large Covid-19 isolation facility came up at the tip of the runway site, it immediately raised questions about the fate of the “tourism node” planned for the 5.9-hectare spot, which is adjacent to the cruise terminal.

There are dozens of four-storey blocks that have 3,000 rooms with private toilets. The blocks have lifts, and some enjoy views of the harbour or the green Runway Park, now sealed off from the public.

The sturdy structures led some pressure groups and district councillors to suggest that the blocks could be used as transitional housing for the poor.

But the Development Bureau told the Post the isolation centre would be there “only for a temporary period” but a spokesman could not say when the site would be released.

Tourism sector lawmaker Perry Yiu Pak-leung said he hoped it would be returned for tourism development as soon as the pandemic ended, noting that cruise operators had been asking the government to relax travel restrictions as they would like to resume “cruises to nowhere” later this year.

“If the government values culture, sports and tourism development, it should do it well. It is fine to place the isolation centre there for the short term, but such valuable land resources should be used for the original purpose,” he said.

Phyllis Li Chi-miu, former deputy director of planning who retired in 2018, called for clearsighted planning on restoring the tourism node, warning that taking too long risked diminishing the area’s market appeal.

“It will be hard for it to succeed in a mostly residential area, if you look at successful ports around the world,” she said.

The cruise terminal was underused even before it was closed during the pandemic, with few locals going there because of the poor transport connections and lack of facilities. In April, the terminal was turned into a Covid-19 treatment centre for elderly patients.

Unhappiness over scrapped monorail

Perhaps the most unhappiness has centred on the government’s decision to drop the idea of having a monorail running through the Kai Tak Development.

When then chief executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen announced the plan in 2011, the monorail was expected to connect Kai Tak with the rest of East Kowloon, linking a wide range of leisure and watersport activities that would energise the business district.

After two feasibility studies, however, transport officials told lawmakers last year that building the monorail would encounter many technical difficulties and cost too much.

Instead, they proposed using a mix of electric vehicles, buses, travelator networks, water taxis and cycling paths.

“Many residents were indeed very disappointed when they heard the news,” said Cheung King-fan, a Kowloon City district councillor serving Kai Tak. “When they bought their homes, they thought the monorail would be real. We really hope the system can be revived.”

July 6, 1998: ‘Roger, over and out, Kai Tak’ – Hong Kong’s old airport closes

With new projects on the runway slated for presale soon or due for delivery as early as next year, nine developers formed a non-profit company in July, Kai Tak Runway Private Development Company, to liaise with the government on improving accessibility in the area.

By the time the government scrapped the monorail plan, it had sold 11 residential plots on the runway for a total of HK$115.4 billion. Analysts estimated that the decision could lower new flat prices there by 15 per cent.

Ricky Wong, managing director of Wheelock Properties, one of the nine developers, told the Post earlier that the group was in talks with officials to allow bus services between individual property projects and Kai Tak MTR station.

He admitted that the general impression people had of the runway properties was their “inconvenience”.

Henderson Land Development, also in the group, said it still hoped to raise the monorail idea with the government.

But the Development Bureau made clear in a reply to the Post there was no revisiting the plan, reiterating that both elevated and ground-level options had been explored and found too costly, even for a shorter monorail line running only within Kai Tak.

01:17

10-hectare former Kai Tak runway to store trees felled by Typhoon Mangkhut

10-hectare former Kai Tak runway to store trees felled by Typhoon Mangkhut

Iris Tam Siu-ying, a planning consultant for the 2006 Kai Tak review, said she had “no choice but to accept” the changes and delays, although she noted that planning had to adapt to changing needs of society.

She recalled the care taken to ensure Kai Tak’s urban design would be free of the massive blocky podium structures so common in the city’s private residential developments, with towers atop mammoth podiums housing car parks, shops and even gardens, resulting in a street level devoid of human activity.

Kai Tak developers were required to design their buildings to allow wind to blow from the harbourfront to the inner city. Plenty of space was also set aside for parks and public squares.

While Tam did not think the reduction of commercial sites would affect the aim of creating a CBD2 in East Kowloon, she cautioned against underestimating the population at Kai Tak.

Given the trend of developers building smaller flats, the actual total could be much more than planners anticipated.

She said: “What are the consequences of having a bigger population? Will there be traffic overload in the area? Will the living environment be compromised? These are all issues the government should think about.”