Guia Lighthouse contests Cultural Affairs Bureau stance on projects in heritage protection area

The Concern Group for the Protection of the Guia Lighthouse has contested the response issued by the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC) that there was no need to assess the heritage impact of some development projects along Avenida do Dr. Rodrigo Rodrigues.

The IC considered that the projects in the area comply with the 90 meters height limits defined by law, but with the concern group stating that regardless of the compliance there is an impact in the heritage protection area.

‘The Cultural Affairs Bureau knows very well that there is no cultural heritage expert with a conscience who is willing to evaluate the construction projects along the Avenida do Dr. Rodrigo Rodrigues and could conclude that they would have no serious visual impact on the Guia Lighthouse,’ the group said in a statement issued during the weekend.

The group recently submitted an urgent appeal to UNESCO asking for its World Heritage Committee to send an expert team from to Macau to study in detail the serious damage to the visual integrity and the principal sightlines of the Guia Lighthouse.

The group considered that building ‘completely’ violated the 2005 World Heritage Committee recommendation is violated completely to ‘make every effort to develop the management system so as to retain the existing structural and visual integrity’, and to ‘maintain the principal sightlines of the nominated area within its contemporary setting’.

‘The 90-meter new building along the Avenida do Dr. Rodrigo Rodrigues has effectively blocked the visual connection between the Guia Lighthouse and the Orient Arch, another Macao landmark. It has seriously damaged the visual integrity and the principal sightlines of the Guia Lighthouse,’ the group added.

The group also expressed that the IC should ‘not again adopt the ostrich policy’ in the face of an imminent threat to the landscape and the visual integrity of the world cultural heritage site Guia Lighthouse, posed by nearby high-rise buildings.

The IC also addressed the unfinished building at Calçada do Gaio project, stating that the Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage previously conducted a heritage impact assessment in accordance with the guidelines of the UNESCO World Heritage Center which established that the project must maintain the current height.

Calcada do Gaio building

The concern group noted that if the IC recognised that the unfinished building at Calçada do Gaio violated the height limit of 52.5 meters established by a Chief Executive directive in 2008, then it should ‘take decisive measures to reduce the height of the unfinished buildings’.

‘Strangely enough, for the benefit of which party was the IC so eager to look for a cultural heritage expert with a conscience, who is willing to clearly contradict the opinions and suggestions of the public, experts and scholars, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and the UNESCO World Heritage experts to conclude that “the unfinished building should maintain its current height,’ the group added.

‘Why is the relevant Heritage Impact Assessment report so secret that it cannot be disclosed to the public before it is submitted to the World Heritage Center’

Construction works for the 126 meters high project in Calçada do Gaio have been suspended since 2008 following a directive promulgated the Chief Executive Directive to establish the height limits for the buildings to be constructed in its surrounding areas was approved that same year

Still, in 2016 the Macau SAR authorities allowed for the project to maintain its current 81 meters height.