Revitalising Historic Buildings Through Partnership Scheme

Importance of Heritage Conservation

Heritage bears witness to the development of our city and is a valuable and unique asset of our community. Hong Kong being a civilised and developed society, our citizens aspire for richness in life through links to our past and building a sense of identity through conservation of our heritage buildings.

Balancing Conservation And Development

Development and conservation are not opposing forces. We strive to strike a balance between sustainable development and heritage conservation. As one of the many measures to enhance heritage conservation, we will continue to adaptively re-use suitable government-owned historic buildings under the Revitalising Historic Buildings Through Partnership Scheme (Revitalisation Scheme).

Adaptive Re-use of Government-Owned Historic Buildings

We are committed to put our historic buildings to good adaptive re-use. We aim to give these buildings a new lease of life for the enjoyment of the public.

Objectives

• To preserve and put historic buildings into good and innovative use.
• To transform historic buildings into unique cultural landmarks.
• To promote active public participation in the conservation of historic buildings.
• To create job opportunities in particular at the district level.

Mode of Operation

Government-owned historic buildings considered suitable for adaptive re-use are identified for inclusion in the Revitalisation Scheme.

Non-profit-making organisations (NPOs) are invited to submit applications for using these buildings to provide services or run business in the form of social enterprise. In their applications, NPOs are required to provide detailed plans on how the historic buildings will be preserved and their historical significance brought out effectively, how the social enterprise will be operated in order to achieve financial viability and how the local community will benefit

The Advisory Committee on Revitalisation of Historic Buildings (ACRHB), comprising Government and non-Government experts, is responsible for assessing the applications and advise the Government on related matters.

The Commissioner for Heritage's Office provides one-stop advisory service for successful applicants to take forward their proposals in the areas of heritage conservation, land use and planning, building architecture, and compliance with the Buildings Ordinance (Cap 123).

Where justified, we will provide financial support including:

• one-off grant to cover the cost of major renovation to the buildings, in part or in full;
• nominal rental for the buildings; and
• one-off grant to meet the starting costs and operating deficits (if any) of the social enterprises for a maximum of the first two years of operation at a ceiling of HK$5 million, on the prerequisite that the social enterprise proposal is projected to become self-sustainable after this initial period.

Eligibility

NPOs with charitable status under section 88 of the Inland Revenue Ordinance (Cap 112) are eligible to apply. Joint ventures of NPOs are welcome. While applicants may not have obtained charitable status at the time of submission of their applications, they must have obtained such status within three months after the application deadline.