Small businesses and arts groups flee from high rents ... only to end up in potential death traps in Hong Kong
After recent deadly fires, the government is looking to address problem and last week Carrie Lam announced series of plans, including revival of scheme to make it cheaper to refurbish the buildings for other purposes – which could leave the small businesses and arts communities homeless
Dance troupe Y-Space receives government funding but more than anything, it dreads a knock from officialdom on its studio doors.
Whenever it is told of a pending visit, the dancers scramble into a madcap routine and all the leaping and flying their ballet training gave them are put to pull off a ruse.
The dance floor and the bright-lit studio would be transformed into a plain workshop with desks and sewing machines.
The two co-founders would even corral friends into acting as workers, sitting at the desks pretending to be manufacturing costumes.
It is a matter of survival. The lands authorities want them out of their venue but they have nowhere else to go.
“It’s really ironic that we are subsidised by the Arts Development Council, a government-funded body, but it’s the same government that wants to cast us out of where we do what we are subsidised for,” co-founder Victor Ma Choi-wo says.
Like Y-Space, which operates in a 37-year-old industrial building in Kwai Chung, many arts and sports groups, non-industrial businesses and even residents call Hong Kong’s 1,400 factory buildings home.
