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Real estate gets real

Not In My Back Yard - they’re five of the most powerful words in real estate the world over. Property owners have protested against roads, airports, electricity lines, sewage plants, wind farms, prisons, abattoirs -- you name it. And most recently, NIMBY demonstrations have caused riots in China, as peasants protest against power plants that the government plans to plonk on their patch.

But Not In My Back Yard protests have been few and far between in Hong Kong not least because virtually no one has a back yard. Not In Front Of My Mid-Levels Flat With A Partial Sea View doesn’t have quite the same ring.

That’s starting to change, as more and more property owners get increasingly vociferous in their protests against various government projects. They’ve even spawned their own movements. Demonstrators have taken up arms against any number of proposals that have been rubber- stamped through Hong Kong’s unrepresentative and undemocratic halls of power.

There’s an ongoing squabble between owners of renovated walk-up buildings in Soho and the Urban Redevelopment Authority over the plans to raze the wet market and build luxury blocks on Peel and Graham streets. Last year, the residents of Mui Wo were up in arms about the establishment of a drug-rehabilitation center in the small Lantau town.

This year, the villagers of Choi Yuen Tsuen have taken to the streets in an attempt to block a HK$67 billion (US$8.6 billion) high-speed rail link to Guangzhou. The 26 kilometres of track are due to become the world’s most expensive rail way line ever built per kilometre when it’s completed in 2015. In all, 150 households will see their homes destroyed to make room for the railway.

The villagers have been aided and abetted by the post-’80s generation of youngsters, politically active and peeved, to put it politely, about the administration’s incessant quest to appease the government of Beijing. The post-’80s gang, many of them students or recent graduates, feel the brunt of competition from mainlanders when particularly fiercely they’re trying to get their first jobs.

Hong Kong legislators approved the funding for the Guangzhou rail line by a 31-21 vote. Despite being barricaded inside the Legislative Council building, secretary of transport and housing Eva Cheng told Hongkongers they would have to lump it and learn to like the rail line if they knew what was good for them.

“The government and the general public will absolutely not accept such behavior,” chief executive Donald Tsang said.

I’m not sure about you, but I’m getting sick of being told what “the people” think, or “the people” want, by representatives who weren’t elected by “the people.” Tsang must have installed not just ESPN but also ESP on his television set. Otherwise it’s unclear how he’s able to tap what “the people” think without actually asking them. All of them.

There’s an easy way, of course, to find out what “the people” want. That’s to put it to a vote. The ludicrous claims trotted out by the pro-Beijing camp that “Hong Kong people” don’t want or can’t handle democracy are never put to the test.

Of course, Donald Tsang doesn’t want to put anything to a free and fair vote by the Hong Kong population. A Hong Kong University poll in February showed his approval rating had fallen to 33 percent, the lowest since he took power in 2005. It’s much easier to corral an essentially rigged vote of a few hundred selectors.

A free and fair vote for Hong Kong? One person, one vote? Freely elected politicians who actually represent the voice of the people and can be voted out of office if they don’t?
The chief executive has one reply to that: Not In My Back Yard.