The painful lessons of the outbreak of the Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome and fatal building-related accidents have alerted the community in Hong
Kong of the catastrophic consequences of building neglect. To tackle the problem
of building dereliction, proper building management is indispensable. However,
Hong Kong ’ s community has been slow to embrace building care culture. This
article analyzes key drivers and barriers to engaging Hong Kong homeowners with
voluntary building care initiatives. Generally speaking, the surveyed homeowners
were sensitive to the economic costs and benefi ts of their participation in building
care. Besides, homeowners ’ approach towards building management and
maintenance is predominantly reactive, and legislation remains the key drive for
engaging them with the building problems. Operational diffi culties in building
management and lack of confi dence in repair and maintenance personnel contribute
signifi cantly to the comparatively poor development of building care culture in Hong
Kong. As long as most homeowners regard voluntary building management and
maintenance as time- and money-consuming ‘ extras ’ , fundamental improvements
in the urban

• Engaging homeowners in building care in Hong Kong: Drivers and barriers