Opinion | Paul Chan should revive his plan for homes on golf club site
Albert Cheng says taking on the privileged few, rather than suggesting building flats in country parks, would help regain public trust
A long-term housing strategy consultation document released recently proposed building 470,000 units over the next 10 years. Sixty per cent would be public housing flats; the remainder private.
And because the document only focused on projected demand, without providing solutions to tackle the land supply problem, very few people will take the proposal seriously, given that the administration has been using land shortages as an excuse for not meeting demand.
Embattled development minister Paul Chan Mo-po tried to prove his worth, despite being plagued by a series of scandals, by floating the ridiculous idea of building flats in country parks to boost land supply and solve our acute shortage.
These plots of land have all the necessary infrastructure and services in place
His absurd proposal immediately drew criticism from across the community. And, despite being development secretary, Chan seems ignorant of the facts. He claimed 70 per cent of Hong Kong has been designated as country parks - in fact it's only 40 per cent.
It's no wonder the latest popularity survey conducted by the University of Hong Kong shows he has the lowest approval rating, again, of any government minister - down to just 14 per cent.
As development secretary, Chan is duty bound to seek out available land. But, since assuming office, he has done nothing but chalk up a series of mistakes and scandals. He obviously knows little about the perennial land problem in Hong Kong, judging from his country park proposal. He is even eyeing People's Liberation Army sites in Hong Kong to ease land shortages.
These two categories of land are unquestionably no-go zones. Chan has again exposed his ignorance. The public cannot be fooled, as shown by the latest approval ratings.
Chan has said that, in order to make the best use of land, the government could and would recover any land for housing or redevelopment, whether it was used for a private golf course, farmland, or even land zoned for military use by the PLA.