The Urban Renewal Authority (URA) on Friday pledged to preserve the culture unique to the “Little Thailand” streets of Kowloon City, as it unveiled plans to redevelop the area to build more than 4,300 flats.

The project will cover three sections of Carpenter Road and Nga Tsin Wai Road, totalling nearly 400,000 square feet, which currently house some 1,600 households and more than 100 ground floor shops.

The URA’s planning and design director, Wilfred Au, said the authority is aware of the Thai community and the small street shops and restaurants they established over the years.

"We intend to invite them, those shop operators with local characteristics to come and operate in the pedestrianised streets," he said.

"We find they don't have enough urban space to curate some of their traditional event festivals, here we increase the urban space and hope they can make use of this event space to curate their activities," said Au.

The Kowloon City market, popular among not only local residents but celebrities like movie star Chow Yun-fat, will be relocated to a new government complex, according to the URA’s proposal.

To make the area more "walkable", the URA said it will install two "green pedestrian avenues", an underground carpark, more public parking spaces and a "Gateway Square" connecting the area to the Kai Tak development area.

The revamp is expected to make way for more than 4,300 small-to-medium sized flats.

The URA said it hopes the new government complex can be completed by 2030 while most of the other proposed facilities can be ready by 2037.