Christopher Cheng, a former member of the Town Planning Board, noted in his article on the harbour (May 24), that while the government won the lawsuit over the Central reclamation, it lost the hearts of the people.
He lamented that the government machinery failed to defend the allegation that the purpose of the reclamation was to create land for commercial development.
Not only has Mr Cheng not done better than the government, in defending it he has further muddied the waters and put the credibility of the reclamation back into public focus. He wrote: 'It is inconceivable for anyone to suggest that providing millions of square feet of floor space for commercial development will aggravate the traffic problem'. That is precisely the problem.
The government is indeed planning to increase the density of development substantially in an already highly developed area. If this is not so, it will not need to build so many roads on the harbourfront, which will allow for the Central reclamation to be reduced.
The official figure that Mr Cheng was given - that there will only be a total of 1.6 million sq ft of additional commercial space - is an enormous amount of new development. Why Mr Cheng thinks it is nothing to worry about is mystifying. The Ratings and Valuation Department can attest to the fact that average Grade A office completions in the whole of Hong Kong Island, from 1999 to the end of 2003, were about 1 million square feet per annum. The provision of 1.6 million sq ft would be about 8 per cent of the entire stock of Grade A space in Central and Western, and that is not taking into account developments expected on the Tamar site. If that were to be added, these two sites will add 15 per cent more Grade A space in the area.
Mr Cheng also overlooked the official forecast of 1,200 vehicle trips per hour during peak periods arising from proposed commercial developments on an area of about 5.1 hectares on the Central reclamation.
In Letters on May 25, Timothy Li on behalf of the Housing, Planning and Lands Bureau said there was no need to fear Victoria Harbour would be turned into a river. Nowhere did he explain that the size of the harbour has already been reduced by half from its original size. The observation that 'ferries will continue to sail' is not a justification for the considerable narrowing of the harbour as a result of reclamation.