Experts say region fails on coherent heritage managment

A lack of coordination and transparency in the planning process has been a prominent problem in the management of Macau’s historical heritage, local experts stressed during a roundtable discussion at the University of Saint Joseph this week.
Architect and urban planner Francisco Pinheiro suggested that a lack of public deliberation in the process of planning heritage management has resulted in a fragmented configuration of today’s heritage map.
“In Macau we have one of the best plans in the world, because the best plan is no plan. So it’s very flexible,” the urban planner said ironically, warning that the later-built large structures have had an impact of destroying the historic environment.
“The casinos have a strong influence and that’s normal; the problem is, in the plan you need to collaborate with all the stakeholders,” he explained. “It’s normal they want to develop; the problem is the lack of coordination in our plan or transparency in all the processes.”
Although the major stakeholders in Macau are casino operators, Prof. Pinheiro argued that the casinos are not a direct pressure upon the preservation of the city’s historic center. Instead, “the ones applying more pressure are the real estate developers.”
“In fact they are mostly from liquid Hong Kong companies. They want to develop towers everywhere and they complain that in Macau the protection area is too big,” he said.
Heritage specialist Richard A. Engelhardt, a former UNESCO Regional Advisor for Culture in Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok, also emphasized that public participation is essential for improving a draft management plan.
“It has to be evident that the public consultation happened and the result of the consultation was put into the end result of the master plan,” he stressed. Some participants at the roundtable event questioned why the government has kept the city’s master plan as “a secret.” In response, Mr Engelhardt identified that the reason why such doubts merged is the opaque plan-making process.
“The people in charge of the process are not necessarily sure what the process should be; they are not experts and don’t have practice at making heritage site management. They are not necessarily familiar with the international best practices; they are not even necessarily heritage specialists, very familiar with how planning processes work in general,” he explained.
The expert further suggested that in the past decades, the management of Macau’s heritage featured a fragmented pattern, as the handling of each heritage site was resolved case by case. In response, he stressed that the public should keep in mind what the city would be like a hundred years later as a consequence of today’s heritage management.
“I see there will be no Macanese left in a hundred years in this city,” he stated, explaining that many of the locals would be driven out by the lack of opportunities and the high land prices in Macau.
“Because of that, the only thing that’s going to be preserved are the facades, because the visitors here are only interested in the photography opportunities, and the functions of the buildings will all be for commercial purposes,” he added. “This is exactly the scenario happening in Venice. It will only take ten years to happen in Macau.”