“It takes 10 years to grow trees, but 100 to rear people,” a Chinese proverb says. Ten years ago, in response to public demand for more greening space, the Civil Engineering and Development Department developed Greening Master Plans (GMPs) for urban areas to carry out greening works in a systematic way and on a district basis. After eight years of efforts, such works have brought us an additional 11 hectares of greening area, and many of the projects have won prizes in professional landscape design......

One-third – or more than 100 hectares – of the Kai Tak Development (KTD) will be used for public space. To show KTD’s vibrant, picturesque and people-oriented attributes, the Civil Engineering and Development Department commissioned expert consultants to explore how we could optimise this public space in order to promote place branding for Kai Tak. The study recommends adopting an innovative “Public Creatives” concept and using a tree as the core design concept. The overall design will include logos, font types, colour schemes and related two- and three-dimensional features to convey Kai Tak’s distinctive identity......

The Government is currently seeking supplementary provisions from the Legislative Council (LegCo) for certain works projects, while the estimated annual capital works expenditure of the Government is expected to exceed $70 billion in the next few years. This has sparked concern in the LegCo and within the community over two issues, namely the accuracy of the Government’s estimate of capital works expenditure, and over-spending in capital works projects......

A few days ago, I announced the Government’s 2014-15 Land Sale Programme which comprises 34 residential sites, capable of providing about 15 500 flats in total. Regarding other sources of land supply, it is estimated that the West Rail property development project at Yuen Long Station will contribute 1 880 flats, and the MTR Corporation Limited’s (MTRCL) own projects at Tseung Kwan O and Tai Wai Station could provide a total of some 4 650 flats. Moreover, the Urban Renewal Authority (URA) projects could provide about 3 200 flats, and 4 700 flats are estimated to be supplied by private development or redevelopment projects based on the average figures of the past 10 years. Combining the various sources mentioned above, the total private housing land supply in the next year is estimated to have a capacity to produce about 30 000 flats......

To provide more space for economic growth and the improvement of our living environment, the development of underground space and rock caverns are both viable sources of long-term land supply. The two initiatives, proposed in last year’s Policy Address, have seen considerable progress after a year of hard work. Last year, we commenced a territory-wide study on underground space development in the urban districts, and we now plan to launch feasibility studies in the second half of this year on the relocation of three government facilities to rock caverns......