{"id":12115,"date":"2018-03-02T21:12:09","date_gmt":"2018-03-02T13:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/?p=12115"},"modified":"2018-03-02T21:12:09","modified_gmt":"2018-03-02T13:12:09","slug":"legco-byelection-functional-zimmerman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/2018\/03\/legco-byelection-functional-zimmerman\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Zimmerman’s tough fight to fill functional constituency seat vacated by Edward Yiu in Legislative Council By-election"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ada Chung<\/strong><\/p>\n

I<\/span>ncumbent Southern District Councillor Paul Zimmerman is making his third bid to enter the Legislative Council, this time for the Architectural, Surveying, Planning and Landscape functional constituency seat \u00a0previously held by Edward Yiu Chung-yim.<\/p>\n

Yiu, who was disqualified for deviating from the official script when he was taking his oath as a legislative councillor, is backing Zimmerman, who is also supported by others in the pro-democracy camp. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Dutch-born urbanist believes he can help to bring together people from different sides when it comes to the city\u2019s planning and development. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo all these issues [related to the city\u2019s development], are bringing people from different sectors and that is something that I have always done, and this is what I hope to continue to do and I think definitely a strength that I have.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Zimmerman says the government only spends money on large scale projects, and neglects small-scale community projects and public projects which he believes would benefit both the public and small firms. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem in Hong Kong is for young, small architects, planners and surveyors to get their hands dirty and do nice things,\u201d Zimmerman says.\u201c[areas for community projects] they\u2019re all ready to go, but there is no money, no program to fix them up.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He also wants the government to enact a \u2018conservation bill\u2019 to protect areas from being destroyed during redevelopment. He explains that while the government currently distinguishes and zones conservation areas, there is insufficient legal protection. Zimmerman thinks that the public may be more willing to accept development in greenbelt areas if there were a conservation bill. <\/span><\/p>\n

The former Civic Party member is critical of the government’s housing plans and believes there isn\u2019t enough pressure on the administration to consider alternative sites for redevelopment, such as brownfield areas – or \u2018inefficiently used land\u2019 in the New Territories. He believes this is mainly because the government is unwilling to negotiate with landowners – some of whom are linked to the Heung Yee Kuk. <\/span><\/p>\n

Zimmerman faces a tough fight in a seat that had always been held by the establishment camp before Yiu\u2019s groundbreaking victory. And his image took a knock following a series of media reports about illegal structures in his Sai Kung residence. Although he has since removed the unauthorized building works, Zimmerman believes he could have handled the issue better. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOf course I regret that situation has come about,\u201d he says.\u201cIf I could turn the clock back, I would have been much smarter.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Zimmerman adds he has never tried to hide the fact that there were illegal structures at his home and he had in fact registered them under the \u2018Reporting Scheme for Unauthorized Building Works\u2019 with the Buildings Department in 2011. <\/span><\/p>\n

The other candidate running in the Architectural, Surveying, Planning and Landscape functional constituency in the 2018 Legislative Council by-election is former legislator, Tony Tse Wai-chuen. <\/span><\/p>\n

Edited by Yi Yeung<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

District councillor Paul Zimmerman hopes to bring together talents from all sides to improve Hong Kong’s city planning. But he faces a tough fight to win the Architectural, Surveying, Planning and Landscape functional constituency seat formerly held by Edward Yiu Chung-Yim in the upcoming legislative council by-election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[938],"tags":[426,942,423,943],"class_list":["post-12115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legislative-council-by-elections-2018","tag-by-election","tag-functional-constituency","tag-legco","tag-paul-zimmerman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12115"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12120,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12115\/revisions\/12120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}