Category: development
LanDAC: Develop Lantau, but conserve the airport and Macau bridge
In its final work report LanDAC, the government’s Lantau advisory committee, urges stronger conservation protection, but proposes new road and rail links through a country park and affirms support for the massive East Lantau Metropolis (ELM) plan.
The committee offers no support for protecting the island’s threatened wetlands, its buffalo and cattle herds or the shrinking Chinese white dolphin population. Incredibly, however, among those items it does regard as worthy of conservation are the airport, Ngong Ping 360 and the yet-to-be-completed Hong Kong-Macau Bridge. These are significant for “landscape conservation,” the report says.
Heritage item
Contentious Lantau development body ends first term
The Lantau Development Advisory Committee (LanDAC), the developer-friendly advisory body responsible for ideas such as the end of the closed road, extending Ngong Ping 360 and filling in Shek Pik reservoir, has reached the end of its first term.
The current committee held its final meeting Monday and is now preparing a report to the government. The committee will continue its work, but its membership is unclear.
Yesterday’s meeting spent time on transport infrastructure, Apple Daily reports. Some members argued that if the East Lantau Metropolis (ELM) is built in the waters off Mui Wo, providing road and rail connections direct to Hong Kong island, then the MTR also be extended on the north coast to connect to Tuen Mun and the New Territories, complementing the Chek Lap Kok-Tuen Mun road link now under construction. Continue reading
High-end living lands in Lantau
At no 20: prime view and a pool
If you’re feeling limited by Lantau’s lifestyle choices you now have a new one – opulent living.
Not one but two high-end housing developments have come on the market in the last six months, exemplifying perhaps South Lantau’s transition from sleepy backwater to development hot spot.
Kelly Merrick from Home Solutions kindly took Lantau Confidential for a tour of White Sands early this month. From her perspective it’s the arrival of much-needed new inventory. “There’s been nothing like this previously on Lantau,” she said.
Poll result shows it’s time to pause Lantau ‘development’
The Islands District Council result yesterday reflected Hong Kong as a whole; the pro-government and pan-Dem forces basically fought a draw.
Each gained and lost a seat. Democrat Eric Kwok ousted Andy Lo in Yat Tung South, while Peter Yu (Civic Party) lost to Sammi Fu (New People’s Party) in Tung Chung North. Amy Yung (Civic Party) held onto Discovery Bay despite the efforts of the SCMP.
As widely-predicted, Randy Yu comfortably won the Lantau seat vacated by Rainbow Wong but his share of the vote plummeted from 77% in 2011 to just on 50% – the lowest that the establishment candidate has ever achieved. That slide in support is a testament to the disquiet over the blizzard of projects and development schemes, in particular the Shek Kwu Chau incinerator and the plan to open up South Lantau roads. Continue reading
Election 2015 preview
Whoever said the internet has changed politics never visited Lantau. The battle for Hong Kong’s biggest electoral district is strictly analogue. No Twitter wars here. Issues and platforms are less important in Lantau’s murky politics than patronage, clan loyalties and personal feuds.
The island rural committees dominate both local politics and the Island District Council (IDC). Although the government no longer appoints councillors, rural committee heads are automatically granted seats. As well as the ten elected members the Islands Council will have eight ex officio members from the rural committees – pretty much a lock.
Randy Yu, the rural committee candidate for Lantau and, if he wins, the likely next IDC chairman, should also be a lock. But the retirement of the unlamented Rainbow Wong,the development controversies and the Occupy fallout have made this contest interesting. Continue reading
Macau bridge could be the biggest fail of them all
Photo: James Wong (Creative Commons)
More evidence that the HK-Macau bridge is shaping to be an even bigger disaster than the other budget-busting SAR mega-projects.
Howard Winn (the former SCMP Lai See editor) reports that in the rush to get the project completed the Highways Department has been cutting corners. It’s been trying to construct the border crossing on reclaimed land that is not yet ready for construction.
“The problem is that once again Hong Kong has allowed itself to be bullied into building this too quickly”, said one experienced engineering consultant. In the past Hong Kong has left reclaimed land to settle for between 5-15 years before building on it. “The problem with the [border crossing] is that it hasn’t been left long enough and it is still settling.” Engineers are still considering what do about the problem.
So much for consultation
Protest at road opening plan, July 19
Remote as Lantau may seem, you get a sharp view of the workings of Hong Kong. The dysfunction, the cronyism, the inability to grasp people’s needs – all reveal themselves in microcosm.
So when the Transport Department pre-empts the outcome of its consultation on opening South Lantau roads, that’s an issue for Lantauistas, but it also tells a tale that is reflected across the entire city.
Following a public outcry after the department’s plan to allow an extra 80 vehicles per day was made public, it consented last month to take submissions from community groups. Continue reading
Six years in, we don’t know when Macau bridge will open
C.Y. Leung’s visit to Zhuhai last week confirmed what has been apparent for months – the grand project to build a bridge across the Pearl River mouth is so far off schedule no-one can say when it will be finished.
At the start of the year the 50-km bridge was slated to come into service by the end of 2016 as originally planned.
In January the government took a request to LegCo for an extra $5.46 billion, and acknowledged it was waiting on a fresh analysis from the Highways Dept to give a revised timetable. Officials had no trouble in finding reasons for the spike in budget: the high number of construction projects, machinery costs, rising wages, the environmental assessment, the delay caused by the 2010 judicial review and the cost of the new immigration facilities.
In March the head of the Guangdong Development and Reform Commission, Li Chunhong, told the SCMP that construction, which began in December 2009, may not complete until after 2020:
The bridge was scheduled to be completed next year, but Li said even 2020 was a difficult target because of technical difficulties in laying sections of tubes on the seabed and joining them to make a tunnel.
Closed road holding Lantau back: LanDAC
Lantau’s transport system is imploding: buses, ferries, taxis, roads and carparks are at breaking point on most days and are overwhelmed on public holidays.
But LanDAC, the government advisory committee comprised mainly of developers and tourism execs has decided Lantau’s problem is not enough visitors. They have recommended opening up South Lantau to all vehicles; the Transport Department is currently studying it.
Hong Kong crazy is all too clear from here
The onset of Occupy has meant outsiders have had to grapple with the crazy that lies in the shadow of our dazzling skyscrapers. Of course, CY Leung has done his best to make it clear, and no-one could accuse Regina Ip of not playing her part.
But from this far corner of the territory, we see it all too clearly: the pointless public works, the collusion with business, and the indifference to the environment and the community.
These come together in the current bout of Lantau development fever, sparked by the progress of the Macau bridge. When that HK$80 billion monument completes in 2016 it will be time for another boondoggle, and Leung and friends have their hearts set on an artificial island. To be precise they envisage reclamation in the waters between Lantau and Hong Kong to turn Hei Ling Chau and Kau Yi Chau into one large island over which we can drive from Mui Wo to Central.
Lantau Confidential 