Ambitious vision ‘key to nailing city’s decades-old housing
Academics and former land and housing officials on Tuesday expressed support for the government’s ambitious Lantau reclamation plan, saying it was necessary, visionary and viable.
Francis Lui Ting-ming, adjunct professor in the Department of Economics at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said the housing shortage in Hong Kong has been a problem for decades.
Exorbitant private housing prices and a long wait for public housing are lingering problems troubling Hong Kong people who often live in extremely cramped conditions.
Various short-term measures have been introduced to increase the city’s land supply. However, mostly addressing relatively minor issues, they often missed the bigger picture. Therefore, a holistic and proactive urban planning vision is needed, said Lui, who is also member of the research committee at local think tank Our Hong Kong Foundation.
Patrick Lau Lai-chiu, former director of lands for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, said reclamation was the “cornerstone” of the city’s prosperity.
The development of the hilly city had relied heavily on reclamation. Reclaimed areas include downtown areas on Hong Kong Island and the bustling Yau Tsim Mong district.
Also on the list are transportation hubs such as Hong Kong International Airport, Hong Kong Station of the MTR metro system, and central ferry piers. Most of the city’s new towns housing millions of people were also erected on reclaimed land.
“Everything which is vital to Hong Kong, from hospitals to schools and public housing estates as well as railroads and highways, offices and recreational spaces and the airport, would not exist today without land reclamation,” he noted.
Lau argued that the impact of creating more usable land will be far-reaching. “It will define our quality of life.”
It will establish a new norm for residential flat sizes, the prevalence of public and recreational facilities as well as the pace of urban redevelopment befitting a world-class city, he added.
By February, Hong Kong has gained reclaimed areas of 7,027 hectares since 1887, according to data of the Survey and Mapping Office of the Lands Department.
Another former senior official Geoffrey Somers believes this “bold vision” is practical. It shows the government is willing to take “hairraising risks” for still bigger and better benefits, he said.
Somers, former chief information officer for the Housing Authority and Housing Department, noted that a lot of preparations has been done before the plan was announced.
Since April, a considerable number of engineers have been workin on early stages of the project, an various studies have been under taken.
These include details of the usage of shipping routes off eastern Lantau and the depth of the water there.
As Hong Kong’s biggest outlying island, Lantau already hosts Hong Kong International Airport and its accompanying infrastructure by reclamation.
Somers believes the plan could help tap into the huge potential of the “land bank”, which has long awaited an important role in Hong Kong’s future development.
Ho Lok-sang, dean of business at Chu Hai College of Higher Education, said the “long-overdue” plan will not affect the implementation of other short-term measures. The multipronged approach will help radically resolve the land problem.
These measures include accelerating the development of brownfield sites, converting industrial buildings into residential areas, and implementing a land-sharing scheme to develop idle agriculture land.