Beer Dash raises $60,000 (PHOTOS)

Fun-runners fanned out across South Lantau this morning in the 10th Lantau International Beer Dash.

In overcast but warm conditions, more than 200 people ran the 5km course, starting from the catchwater above Tong Fuk, down the old Tung Chung Road and then along the expanse of Cheung Sha beaches (both of them).

To ward off thirst, five refreshment stations, generously provisioned by sponsors, waylaid them.

Organiser Mel Potgeiter said this year’s event had raised more than HK$60,000. The funds will go to local animal protection groups.

Today’s action as recorded by Lantau News’ photographic team:

Zorro cutting a fine figure

Scooting along

And again?

Top-up

Waving the flag

Don’t even think of messing with our beer

When the jig is up

Bracing for the tape

Across the line

Macau govt takes control of bridge, but still no opening date

The Macau government yesterday formally took control of the local section of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, but officials were still unable to say when it would open.

State media reported in January that the 56-kilometre bridge across the Pearl River mouth would open in May.

The Guangdong government handed control of the Port Management Zone to the Macao government in a ceremony attended by Macau chief executive Fernando Chui on Thursday.

The Macau government said in a statement the bridge was currently not open to public use and could not advise when it would be come into service.

It said it was still working on establishing coordination “between the bodies responsible for managing the Bridge and the Macao public departments responsible for managing the boundary crossing facilities.”

The bridge, under construction since 2009, will cost Hong Kong government an estimated HK$120 billion. It was originally slated to open in 2016, but was hit by a series of delays and scandals.

The project includes the main bridge, an 11-kilometre viaduct and link road on Lantau’s north coast, an artificial island for border crossing, and a sub-sea tunnel to Tuen Mun.

The final piece of the project, a freeway from Tuen Mun to the Shenzhen border, is yet to be costed.

Photo: The 5th Detachment of the Guangdong Public Security Border Defence Corps 5th Detachment (left) hand over a model of the bridge to Macau Customs officials

More than 50 luxury homes tipped for Cheung Sha sites

More than 50 luxury homes, with a value of up to HK$1.86 billion, could be built on the Cheung Sha sites due to be auctioned this year.

The three vacant plots, all within 1 km of the San Shek Wan roundabout, are zoned for low-density residential housing.

They have been included in the 2018-19 government land auction, announced last week, and are certain to be snapped up for upscale residential development.

The biggest site, Lot 738, will yield approximately 93,000 sq feet of floor space, equivalent to 30 to 40 bungalows, according to analysis by the Economic Times..

The 2.15 ha site surrounds the Cheung Sha police base on South Lantau Road, abutting Acacia Villas. On current market valuations it is worth anywhere between HK$830 million to HK$1.2 billion yuan.

Nearby is Lot 765, 2,730 sq metres, in a cul de sac on the coastal side of South Lantau Road. An adjacent site sold last year for a record HK$210 million, or $19,667 per sq ft.

It has potential floor space of about 12,000 sq feet, enough for five or six homes. Its estimated value is approximately HK$140 million to HK$210 million.

The third site, Lot 766, is between the YWCA camp and San Shek Wan village.

The 5,770 sq-metre plot has potential floor space of up to 25,000 sq ft, enough to build ten to 12 three-storey houses, worth HK$300-450 million in current prices.

With its ocean views, beach proximity and convenience to Tung Chung and the new Macau bridge, Cheung Sha has become Lantau’s luxury hotspot,

Apart from the well-known Whitesands and Botanica Bay developments, the government has sold three other plots for high-end development in recent years.

Thieves nab $1.5m haul from Visionary as city-wide spree continues

A Visionary resident has lost jewellery and watches worth an estimated HK$1.47 million in the latest in a spate of burglaries across the city.

A 57-year-old man told police he had found his window forced open and the apartment ransacked when he returned to his home in the upscale apartment complex at about 10am yesterday, Headline News reported.  The thieves had taken the valuables from a safe.

It was the tenth burglary in Hong Kong in three days. A home in Causeway Bay was also burgled on Tuesday night, and other break-ins have taken place in Happy Valley, Kowloon Tong and Kowloon City, scmp.com reports.

The spree targeting luxury homes is almost certainly the work of a well-organised gang.

Police so far have been cautious in public comments, saying only that they are investigating to see if a syndicate is involved.

(EXPLAINER) The by-election and Lantau

Q: What did we learn from the Sunday by-election?

It’s been widely interpreted as a defeat for the pan-Democrats – not least by the democrats themselves, who yesterday publicly apologised to supporters.

They won two of the four seats being contested and remain short of the one-third needed to veto key bills.

Q: So what happened?

For one, it seems the democrat candidates focused too much on ‘DQ’ – the disqualification of legislators that led to the by-elections in the first place. Voters may have been sympathetic but were also looking for a positive reason to vote for the dems.

Edward Yiu, the candidate for Kowloon West, has said he miscalculated by not doing enough door knocking in the housing estates. His campaign was run by Eddie Chu, who triumphed in New Territories West (which includes Lantau) in 2016. But his rural tactics may not have been suitable for the urban areas.

The dems were likely affected by the smaller voter turnout – their vote in the three geographical seats was down ten points or so. It may be voter fatigue, or it may be that localists declined to support moderates like Yiu. The reviews are still underway.

Q: How does this matter for Lantau?

None of the four constituencies directly involved Lantau, but apart from the setback for democratic forces, the result impacts here in a number of ways.

One small point to note is that Bill Tang, who represents Yat Tung North in the Islands District Council, failed in his attempt to win a New Territories East seat.  An official with the pro-government HKFTU, he had held the Legco labour functional constituency seat from 2012-16 (no, it’s not clear how someone from Tung Chung gets to stand in NT East.)

More significantly, Lantau will not benefit from the advocacy of Edward Yiu and another candidate Paul Zimmerman, who ran unsuccessfully for the architectural constituency. Both are informed and committed on Lantau development and conservation issues. Zimmerman, for example, has called for changes in the Waste Disposal Ordinance – the law that allows landowners to dump landfill on their wetland plots with the guaranteed approval of the EPD.

Q: What happens next?

For Lantau, the biggest thing on the Legco calendar – quite possibly later this year – will be the request to fund a feasibility study into the East Lantau Metropolis (ELM).

Note this is not a study to examine its economic or financial viability. It will examine the best way to build the ELM, not to question any assumptions.

If approved it will be the first of many requests to tip taxpayer cash into the biggest project in Hong Kong’s history.

The feasibility study too is a record-breaker. The government was seeking approximately HK$250 million before it withdrew the bill after getting caught up in democrat filibustering last year.

Thanks to the DQs and last Sunday’s by-elections, there won’t be any more filibustering.

Xi Jinping to open Macau bridge: report

Newly-confirmed president for life Xi Jinping will officiate at the opening of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge later this year, analysts believe.

The bridge, under construction since 2009, is due to open as early as May.

It is the linchpin of the Greater Bay Area (GBA) plan, the scheme to integrate the Guangdong and Hong Kong economies and which now has the attention of national leaders.

A number of Greater Bay-related property stocks jumped following the annual National People’s Congress meeting last week, Apple Daily reports.

Gambling stocks are also up across the board on the belief that, as part of its GBA thinking, Beijing will ease Macau gambling rules.

Then-president Hu Jintao opened the Shenzhen Bay Bridge in 2007, so tradition leans toward Xi playing the same role.

But speculation is also driven by the visit Xi made to the Guangdong delegation at the NPC last week, during which he urged them to carry out the GBA plan.

It may not sound much to outsiders, but Beijing-watchers give weight to the provincial teams that leaders visit during the NPC.

They note that Xi met with the Guangdong group four years ago, and this year’s visit was the first time he had called for a second  time on a provincial delegation since he became leader in 2012 – a sign of his focus on the GBA concept, so the theory goes.

The other factor is that, unlike Hong Kong, where reporting on the bridge has focused on the cost over-runs and scandals, mainland media has hailed it as one of the “New Seven Wonders of the World.”

In recent months travel companies have been selling out tours of mainland visitors to the bridge, who have paid as much as 600 yuan for an overnight tour of the Pearl River Mouth. Hong Kong residents, however, have shown absolutely no interest.

In the eyes of most of China, the new bridge is already a success, regardless of its hefty cost and unexplained economic benefit.

Randy Yu calls for double-decker bus review in wake of Tai Po crash

District Council vice chair Randy Yu has called on the Transport Department to review the safety of double-decker buses on Lantau roads before they are introduced later this year.

He said the Tai Po crash last month had stirred residents’ concerns about the safety performance of the new low-floored double-decker bus

Yu, who represents South Lantau, said the council had agreed that the new bus be launched on the 3M route after residents start moving into the Mui Wo HOS developments in August.

But the Tai Po accident, in which 19 people died, “once again raised concerns about the safety of double-decker buses on the 3M route,” Yu said in a question tabled for the Traffic and Transport Committee meeting next week.

“Given the special road environment on Lantau Island, residents in this district are concerned that double-decker buses may not be able to protect the safety of passengers,” he said.

He called on the Transport Department to road-test the new bus on the 3M route – between Tung Chung and Mui Wo – and report to the council on the results.

Another councillor, Amy Yung, the representative for Discovery Bay, called on the Transport Department to answer questions about the safety of the Discovery Bay-Tung Chung bus service.

Reusable cups at Caffe Paradiso

Caffe Paradiso coffee shop in Mui Wo has started selling reusable cups.

It is not the first on Lantau to do so, but it is the first to sell these collapsible cups (below).

As Caffe Paradiso owner Tom Midgley explains, “People didn’t like the tall cups sold by Starbucks. They are too big to carry around all day and they leak,” he said.

So he tracked down these from a US supplier.

The genius of the design is that the pliable main body, made of silicone plastic, becomes a firm surface by the addition of the white sleeve.

It then collapses into a convenient shape with a sealed lid.

Tom, who’s selling them for HK$120 each, says he’s almost sold out the first pack of 36 in the first week. He has ordered a second batch.

“I’ve already saved a lot of paper cups. And when you think some of those people buy a coffee every day, that’s about 300 cups and lids a year we’re saving.”

Court throws out govt attempt to shut down Tung Chung columbarium

The government has failed in its effort to shut down a private columbarium in Nim Yuen village near Tung Chung.

The Court of Appeal today rejected the government’s case that the columbarium, with an estimated 30,000 niches, was “an offensive trade.”

The owner, Uni-creation Investments Ltd, had begun the business three years ago after acquiring the land from indigenous villagers, RTHK reported.

But the Lands Department decided that it contravened the government lease.

After the government had sought to resume the plots, Uni-creation took it to court. It won the case in a lower court, but lost after the government appealed.

The Court of Appeal agreed with the original decision that the government’s evidence was weak. According to RTHK:

The appeal court said while, in general, one may feel uneasy “living next door to the dead,” in this case, clan graves and urns containing human remains had existed in the village well before the columbarium opened.

 And, in fact, the judge noted, all the land in the village was bought up by the company and no one lives there anymore.

The court further found that a columbarium was not an offensive business, and that legislation already existed to regulate them.

Despite the lack of local residents, villagers protested the plan.

Uni-creation had acquired the land from a number of local residents, including Nim Yuen representative Kwan Wai-on, between 2006 and 2008.

The district office in 2012 had approved the reconstruction of the village homes for personal “domestic use.”

Uni-creation director Cheng Yung-hing is also a former Lands Department official and a director of the company running the columbarium business, SCMP.com reported.

Green group highlights climate change threat to Tai O

A local environmental group, Carbon Care InnoLab, is planning to hold a Tai O hike and fundraiser to raise awareness of the climate change threat to the low-lying village.

The group is inviting the public to join a 7km hike on the Lantau Trail above Tai O, passing Lung Tsai Ng Yuen and down to the coast,.

Carbon Care InnoLab co-founder Chong Chen Yau said climate change will bring about extreme weather events, fiercer typhoons and heavier rainfall.

He notes that when Typhoon Hagupit struck in 2008, Tai O was flooded, isolated from the rest of Hong Kong and its power cut off.

Changes in water levels and salinity will also threaten the ecology of the seaside and threaten mangrove forests and their ability to withstand typhoons.

In Tai O the group will set up an educational station to share information on the impact of flooding and landslides, and on environmental conservation and local fisheries.

Details of the March 18 event here.

Photo (top): Emergency services training drill, Tai O, last August