Massive Tung Chung Bay reclamation gets underway

Work on the reclamation of 130 ha of Tung Chung Bay to create land for housing formally began today.

Government officials descended on north Lantau this morning to don the traditional yellow hard hats for the ceremonial project start.

Combined with the removal of 150 ha of the northern side of the bay to create an artificial island for the HK-Macau bridge, the new project will reduce the bay, once two kilometres wide, to a narrow channel.

A HK$12 billion contract to carry out the reclamation was let to a Singapore-China joint venture, Build King-SCT, last month.

The Tung Chung east project is the biggest part of what is officially known as the Tung Chung New Town Extension – the biggest project in the district since it was built two decades ago.

It is intended to provide 40,000 homes, with the first people forecast to move in in 2023. Another 9,000 homes are to be built at Tung Chung west near Shek Mun Kap. More than three-fifths will be public housing.

Led by Paul Chan (centre), today’s dignitaries included Islands District Council chairman Chow Yuk-tong (third from right) and various works officials

Finance Secretary Paul Chan – who as Development Secretary was the chief salesman for the East Lantau Metropolis – used the occasion to hail the importance of reclamation, which has slowed down in the last two decades.

Between 2000 and 2015, Hong Kong generated a total of only 690 hectares of land (ie, an average of more than 40 hectares annually) through land reclamation, far less than the 3,000 hectares between 1985 and 2000 (that is, an average of 200 hectares per year About ten Victoria Parks), a decrease of nearly 80%.

Without elaborating, Chan argued that reclamation is synonymous with urban growth, noting that nearly half of the city’s population lives in ‘new towns’ – urban areas such as Tsuen Wan, Tuen Mun and Shatin that were built in the 1970s and 80s.

Tseung Kwan O and Tung Chung were created in the 90s, but no new residential districts have been developed since.

Chan says up to now Tung Chung has lacked the scale of other new towns like Shatin, which has 700,000 people, and Tai Po 280,000, to support local facilities.

Originally anticipated to house 200,000 people, today has little more than 80,000. Chan blames the shortfall – again without any details – on the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s and SARS in 2003

He says the expansion will bring a “substantial improvement in local facilities” to the district, including two new MTR stations, a 3 ha playground, “post-secondary education facilities, clinics, large-scale public markets and more than 5 km of promenades.”

The expansion will also provide 870,000 sq metres of commercial floor space will be used for office, retail and hotel development, enabling more local job opportunities.

Protestors dump Lantau waste at Govt House, warn of further action

Demonstrators dumped construction waste outside Carrie Lam’s residence today to protest landfilling and wetland destruction, with Legco member Eddie Chu warning of further protests “if the government ignores us.”

The rally of about 30 people marched from Central ferry pier, bringing with them two trolleys filled with waste from South Lantau landfill sites.

Occupying Central

They poured the trash onto the ground at the Government House gate to remind Lam that conserving South Lantau and protecting the wetlands are her own policies.

A police sergeant accepted a petition on behalf of Lam.

A police contingent almost as large as the protest itself watched over the event.

Police presence

Eddie Chu told the demonstrators:

“We will come back if the government does not take the right actions to deal with this dumping issue.

“This is only the first action. There will be actions following if the government ignores us.

“We will not allow this to happen in South Lantau. We are not going to allow it to happen anywhere in rural Hong Kong.”

Paul Zimmerman (left), Eddie Chu (second from left)

Paul Zimmerman, head of Designing Hong Kong and a candidate for the architectural constitutency at the forthcoming by-election, said the government needed to introduce new legislation to protect rural Hong Kong.

“If you want development in Hong Kong you have to give confidence to people that conservation truly is conservation,” he said.

He said landfilling of the kind carried out in rural Hong Kong was “destruction on purpose, to create development value,” to ensure land was already destroyed so it could be rezoned.

But the symbolic waste dumping may come at a cost to the protestors. Organiser Eddie Tse, head of the Save Lantau Allianced said police had warned him he could be fined for dumping the waste.

What a waste

16 in hospital after HAS bus crash on N. Lantau Highway

Sixteen people were injured when a Hong Kong Airport Services (HAS) bus collided with a truck at Sunny Bay early this morning.

The bus, carrying staff to the airport for the morning shift, was trying to overtake a mobile crane when it clipped the rear of the vehicle and careered into a concrete barrier, skidding for 100 metres before coming to a halt.

The 61-year-old bus driver was trapped in the vehicle and had to be cut free, Ming Pao reported..

Of the ten males and six females who were injured, 13 were sent to Princess Margaret Hospital and the remaining three went to North Lantau Hospital for treatment.

By noon, ten had already been discharged.

Police are investigating the cause of the accident.

HAS is a Cathay Pacific subsidiary that provides baggage, aircraft and other airport services.

Photo: HK01

Ukranian refugee arrested over Ham Tin break-in

A 21-year-old Ukranian has been arrested over a break-in in Ham Tin in October.

The man, who has sought asylum in Hong Kong, was arrested last week on Pui O Beach, where he had been in living in a tent.

Police say he smashed a window to break into a Ham Tin home between October 4-9 last year.

The house was unoccupied and no property was stolen, police said.

Police located the man with the help of local residents.

He has been charged with burglary and remanded in custody.

Ombudsman castigates EPD over passive response to fly-tipping

The Ombudsman has castigated the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) for being too slow and reactive in dealing with fly-tipping.

It has called on the department to increase inspections and take “stronger actions” against fly-tipping in rural Hong Kong.

The Ombudsman’s report on fly-tipping, issued today, did not refer specifically to Pui O, where EPD has been passive in the face of multiple incidents of fly-tipping and landfilling.

But its findings validate many of the concerns of frustrated local residents and activists.

Some filed a complaint to the Ombudsman last month after the EPD failed to take action even though it had video evidence of landfilling without permission.

The report notes that although the Environment Bureau had instructed agencies to conduct regular inspections of fly-tipping blackspots, the EPD had carried out just two in 2017.

Though being one of the major enforcement authorities, EPD has yet to work out an action plan for such proactive inspections. EPD usually acts only on reports from the public, referrals from other departments or media reports.

The Ombudsman also noted that over a 22-month period the EPD had launched just 18 prosecutions – less than one a month.

Over 90% of EPD inspections take place during office hours, drawing complaints from members of the public because it meant fly-tippers could easily evade inspections.

EPD should have conducted more comprehensive inspections so that there would be no loopholes for offenders to evade its enforcement action.

The Ombudsman also admonished the department for the lack of progress in implementing GPS, “despite years of study.”

A trial of mandatory use of GPS in construction vehicles began in 2015 but the system still has not put it into practice.

As GPS is already a well-developed and popular technology, and the government has already spent years studying [it], … we consider that EPD, as the department enforcing [the Waste Disposal Ordinance] should make more efforts to push forward with the aforesaid legislative amendments.

It called on the EPD to expedite the introduction of the system.

The Ombudsman said EPD officials should step up inspections and enforcements outside office hours and draw up “proactive inspection plans for stronger actions against fly-tipping activities.”

The report also criticised the Planning Department for taking too long to enforce ‘Reinstatement Notices’, requiring landowners to return sites to their previous state, and said its prosecutions had little deterrent effectd.

Between 2006 and 2017, landowners had complied with the RNs in just 8% of cases.

Cold spell to last another week: Observatory

With temperatures sinking below six degrees on Lantau this morning, the Hong Kong Observatory has warned that the cold spell will continue until late next week.

“The winter monsoon and its replenishment will maintain the cold spell over southern China to the latter part of next week,” the Observatory said.

“Locally, temperatures over the territory this morning were generally two to three degrees lower than those of yesterday,” it said in an early morning post.

It warns of relatively large temperature difference between day and night in the next few days.

At 5:40am, the temperature was 6.6 degrees in Chek Lap Kok and 5.9 in South Lantau and Cheung Chau, while Ngong Ping shivered at 0.6 degrees.

The cold snap is the result of an intense winter monsoon that has brought wintry weather to southern China. 

A strong monsoon signal has been in force since late yesterday afternoon, bringing winds from the north and rough seas, the Observatory said.

The monsoon – a seasonal wind that arises out of the differential heating of seas and lands – usually arrives in Hong Kong from the northeast in winter and the southwest in summer.

Today will be dry and fine, with expected maximum of 13 degrees.

Cold start: Hong Kong at 5:40am (Map: Hong Kong Observatory)

Tuen Mun freeway won’t open until at least 2020

The freeway from Chek Lap Kok to Tuen Mun, the last piece of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge project, will not open until at least 2020.

Transport & Housing Secretary Frank Chan told Legco that the ‘southern connection’ – a flyover across Tung Chung Bay to the North Lantau Highway – is forecast to be finished in the first half of 2019.

However, the northern link, a tunnel under the strait to Tuen Mun, would not be ready for traffic “until 2020 at the earliest,” Chan said.

Known officially as the Tuen Mun-Chek Lap Kok Link (TM-CLKL), it is the most expensive piece of the HZM project, with a price currently estimated at HK$46.71 billion, according to the Highways Department.

The last piece of the HZM project (Source: Highways Department)

As well as offering a more direct path to Shenzhen for HZM traffic, it also provides a second connection to the western Kowloon peninsula from Lantau.

Chan denied that the tunnel would be impacted by the shifting tubes in the seawalls supporting the artificial island that hosts the bridge border crossing.

According to the Highways Department, the reclaimed land “had not shown any unusual settlement,” he said. “Upon the completion of the seawalls and the reclamation works, the settlement rate will slow down.”

Chan also said the opening of the bridge, reportedly set for May, was being held up by the need to speed up “clearance conditions” at the three border crossings.

The other Tung Chung property bubble: parking spaces

More than 30 parking spaces changed hands in Tung Chung this month, driven by the non-residential property boom and the expected impact of the HK-Macau bridge.

New price records were repeatedly set, according to Apple Daily. Caribbean Coast valuations reached a new high four times, rising from HK$1.65 million to HK$1.74 million.

Coastal Skyline and Tung Chung Crescent also changed hands at new highs of HK$1.9 million and HK$1.85 million respectively.

One investor sold a Coastal Skyline apartment for around HK$10 million and has since sunk HK$14 million into eight parking spots, mostlyi in Caribbean Coast, Coastal Skyline, Seaview Crescent and Tung Chung Crescent.

The investor is optimistic that the opening of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge will bring demand for parking spots.  Additionally, funds are expected to continue flowing to the non-residential property sector because of the stamp duty that now hits owners of existing residential properties.

Based on the current market rate of Tung Chung parking spaces of about $2,300 to $ 3,500, the rate of return on rental for a group of parking spaces ranges from about 1.6% to 2.4%.

Shotgun cartridges likely ‘fell off a boat’

Police believe the shotgun cartridges found on Upper Cheung Sha beach most likely fell off a passing boat.

After initially finding 19 shells last weekend, a search by police and LCSD cleaning staff located another eight.

A police spokesman said the recovered unused shells were increasingly rusty – a sign they had been in the water for some time.

The unused shells, made by Italian firm RC Cartridges, have undergone forensic analysis but police have have been unable to determine their source.

“They probably fell off a boat, accidentally or otherwise,” the spokesman said.

At least four more dead in latest Tung Chung dog poisonings

Four dogs have died and another is missing in another case of poisoning in Tung Chung.

More than 20 sparrows died from ingesting poison in Ma Wan Chung village.

A 69-year-old indigenous villager, Wong, found one of his dogs choking when he went to feed them early Friday evening, Apple Daily reports.

When he went to search for his other dogs he found a number of dead sparrows and suspected they poisoned bait had been laid.

He found three of his dogs had died while the other is still missing.

SPCA officials and more than 20 police officers went to the scene Saturday morning and found three dead dogs in separate locations and around 15 dead sparrows.

Five sparrows were sent to the Kadoorie Farm for treatment but later died.

Police appealed to the villagers for information about the poison or anyone who may have left out poisoned bait.

FEHD workers cleaned the road and footpath with high-pressure water cannons.

In November 11 dogs died of poisoning in separate incidents in Tung Chung and San Tau village. No arrests have been made over those deaths.

Police urge those with any information about the case to call on 3661 1931.

Photos: Apple Daily