After more than a year of work, the Lantau Development Advisory Committee has mostly completed the strategic proposals for the planning, conservation, economic, social, recreational and tourism development of Lantau, and plans to submit a working report by end of this year. Over the past year or so, the public has expressed some concerns about the planning of Lantau and recently, some people have voiced worries as to whether Lantau’s population will grow rapidly as a result of its development. I would like to briefly explain some of our considerations and views from two perspectives.
First, there are a number of projects in progress or being planned in Lantau, which I have talked about on many occasions before. These include the Tung Chung New Town Extension, the Topside Commercial Development at the Hong Kong Boundary Crossing Facilities Island of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (HZMB), the Tuen Mun-Chek Lap Kok Link, the North Commercial District, the airport’s three-runway system, the Sunny Bay and Siu Ho Wan developments, and more. Among them, the Tung Chung New Town Extension and the development in Siu Ho Wan are major projects that may lead to an increase in population.
Tung Chung now has a population of about 80 000, which is far less than those of more mature new towns like Sha Tin (including Ma On Shan) (about 640 000), Tai Po (about 320 000) and Fanling/Sheung Shui (about 260 000). To exploit the potential of Tung Chung and to achieve economy of scale in the provision of community facilities and transport infrastructure, we have proposed in the Tung Chung New Town Extension Study a comprehensive housing and commercial development in Tung Chung East and a relatively lower density development in Tung Chung West, which will provide a total of 49 400 new residential flats (the ratio of public to private housing units is about 6 to 4) to accommodate an additional population of 144 000. It is estimated that the future population of Tung Chung new town will eventually reach 270 000. The study also proposes the construction of additional railway stations in Tung Chung to improve its accessibility. The entire extension project will also provide about 850 000 square metres of commercial floor area (which is slightly larger than the Harbour City in Tsim Sha Tsui) for office, retail and hotel purposes, and will create some 40 000 jobs so that more Tung Chung residents can live and work in the same district. We are conducting an environmental impact assessment for the extension project and will publish an outline zoning plan in the Gazette by the end of this year. The first population intake is expected to be in 2023 at the earliest. In addition, we are studying with the MTR Corporation Limited the feasibility of residential development on the topside of the Siu Ho Wan Depot.
To meet Hong Kong’s needs for social and economic development in the long run, a stable and sustainable land supply is very important. At present, we are optimistic that we can achieve our required land supply over the next decade or so. On various occasions, we have explained our short-, medium- and long-term measures and I shall not repeat them here. However, where can we find the space for development in the longer run, and what are the strategies that we should adopt? Based on our past experience, we understand well that large-scale land developments take a considerable time to complete. It is not unusual that the entire process will take over 10 years, from the concept initiation to preliminary assessments, planning and engineering studies, and with several rounds of public consultations and dozens of technical assessments related to the environment, transport, water supplies, drainage, ecology, and more. Therefore, we have to make preparations well ahead of time.
Being a responsible government, we launched a long-term strategy study entitled “Hong Kong 2030 + : Towards a Planning Vision and Strategy Transcending 2030”. In addition, two more specific studies are being planned, namely the “Strategic Studies for Artificial Islands in the central waters between Lantau and Hong Kong Island” and the “Preliminary Feasibility Study on Developing the New Territories North”, the latter of which has already been launched. As far as the former is concerned, given the fact that current economic activities and job opportunities are largely concentrated in the urban areas on both sides of Victoria Harbour, resulting in an imbalanced distribution in economic dynamics and bottlenecks for transport infrastructure, we have in recent years pushed forward the transformation of Kowloon East as a second core business district of Hong Kong, so as to alleviate the shortage of commercial floor space in traditional business districts and redistribute some job opportunities to other districts. According to the preliminary assessments, in the longer run, we may consider building one or more artificial islands in the central waters such as near Kau Yi Chau and Hei Ling Chau, which will be just four kilometres or so away from Hong Kong Island (about the length of Tate's Cairn Tunnel). Coupled with the HZMB and other transport infrastructures linking to Lantau, this artificial island project has the potential to develop into the East Lantau Metropolis (ELM), the third core business district of Hong Kong, which could serve Hong Kong’s long-term needs for social and economic development and help achieve a more balanced development for the city.
The construction of artificial islands in the central waters is a long-term, large-scale and complicated project. For now, we have proposed a preliminary concept, and further studies have to be conducted to explore its feasibility, development scale and actual uses. Broad-based public consultations will be carried out to promote discussion in the community. With reference to the scale of the current new towns and in order to achieve a clustering effect and economy of scale in respect of social and economic activities, we may consider setting the target population at about 400 000 to 700 000 under the ELM study. This will enable us to develop the ELM into a diverse and vibrant community. I have to stress that this is only a very preliminary concept, and its detailed planning still requires further study and public consultation.
Long-term land planning and development is an issue of great public concern. We will remain open-minded and continue to listen to the views from various sectors of the community.
20 September, 2015
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