It’s time to reach consensus on measures to create land
The Lantau Tomorrow Vision should be discussed, participated in and monitored by the public positively.
The housing and land supply issue has been the top public concern in recent years. It is quite surprising that a government proposal to create an artificial island which can massively increase Hong Kong’s land supply led to a protest on Sunday. The opposing voice seems to be not good news to Hong Kong. It reminds us of the importance of consensus.
Several thousand people expressed their opposition against the reclamation plan on Sunday. Understandably, the numbers cited in the Lantau Tomorrow Vision plan, e.g., 1,700 hectares, HK$500 billion and 20 years, are too big to the public. In common sense, it is hard to imagine and analyze the effectiveness of such a massive and long-term project. However, there are three points to note. Firstly, creating new land supply is an urgent issue and should not be delayed any longer. Secondly, land creation is a massive project and needs public support. Thirdly, the reality is “no consensus, no new land supply”. Hence, it is time to transform our diverged voices into a collective consensus. The consensus should not be on the details but on three fundamental principles on future development.
The primary principle is that housing is the priority. As a highly developed city, the current housing situation is not acceptable to the public. According to the Housing Authority, at end-June 2018, there were about 150,600 general applications for public rental housing and the average waiting time for general applicants was 5.3 years. We should agree to provide a safe and stable shelter for the needy. Moreover, the housing costs, including rent and price, should be managed at an affordable level. That implies the amount of public housing should be significantly increased and the property speculation should be restrained. Hong Kong people deserve more living space. In 2016, the median per capita floor area of accommodation was just about 161 square feet. There should be a consensus that this situation will not last for future decades. That means even as our population stops to grow, the demand for land will continue to increase.
The second point is that a land bank is essential for Hong Kong’s sustainable development. Land development is not just for the near future. Let’s look at the present situation. The shortage of housing nowadays is the result of the stagnant land development decades ago. If we do not have abundant land reserves on our hands, we will face another shortage decades later. More importantly, with more land reserves, we can have more choices for development. If we do not create new land now, we may need to sacrifice the green areas in the future when we face development bottlenecks. Hence, it is the government’s responsibility to create a land bank for our sustainable development.
Last but not least, we should rethink the idea of “development core”. In the past, economic development concentrated in areas along Victoria Harbour, which led to a too condensed and overcrowded central business district. This uneven spatial design led to extremely high land cost in Central. Moreover, the residents in the remote areas have to travel to work, resulting in a heavy burden on the transportation system. The recent transportation problems revealed the deficit of this spatial design. Thus, it is vital to develop more sub-central business districts to divert some economic activities to other regions in Hong Kong.
If the public can agree on the three principles mentioned above, they should support any means that can address the public’s needs. Land development is a massive project that no single means is capable of achieving; multiple methods must be applied. The Lantau Tomorrow Vision should be discussed, participated in and monitored by the public positively. Besides the development off Lantau, other plans should not be neglected. For instance, the scheme of converting industrial buildings to transitional housing, the Land Sharing Pilot Scheme and the development of brownfield sites are also worthy of public attention. All these plans should be considered and pushed through, coupled with measures to curb private housing prices.
Time waits for no man. The public should put effort in reaching a consensus and support all practical measures. The government should work harder to achieve a consensus among residents, just as Martin Luther King, Jr. said “A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.”