Shaw Studios project gets the green light

A private residential and commercial development on the site of Shaw Studios in Clear Water Bay - former cradle of the city's film industry - was approved by the Town Planning Board after the developers agreed to take over road improvement works from the government.

The board's ruling yesterday means the 7.8-hectare site will be turned into a comprehensive development area with 41 residential blocks, two hostels and two commercial buildings, providing 642 flats and 115 hostel rooms.

The decision was postponed a fortnight ago, when board members raised concern over traffic overload in the area after a new population moved in. The Transport Department said road improvement works were needed to lift the capacity of a roundabout where Clear Water Bay, Hang Hau and Ying Yip roads meet, but it did not give a timetable.

The site is co-owned by three companies - Clear Water Bay Land, Double One and Coastline International. Coastline is a unit of the SCMP Group, publisher of the South China Morning Post.

"On November 12 the applicants wrote to the Town Planning Board and agreed to implement the road improvement works concerned," Alice Mak Wong Kit-fong, the Planning Department's senior town planner for Sai Kung, told the board. Members then approved the plan after just 15 minutes' discussion.

The plan was approved before the Antiquities Advisory Board discussed a proposal to give the site a heritage grading.