The government's proposal to turn the former Kai Tak airport into a commercial, tourism and residential complex has been criticised as a vehicle for 'exchanging development rights for political favours'.
'You are cutting up a perfect diamond into several pieces,' legislator Albert Chan Wai-yip told housing minister Michael Suen Ming-yeung in the Legislative Council yesterday.
'You have distorted the original idea of a Kai Tak development.'
Fellow independent lawmaker Kwok Ka-ki said he was concerned the project would benefit private developers at the expense of the public.
Mr Suen denied he was paying lip service to the environment and pointed out that one-third of the entire development would be devoted to publicly accessible landscaped and green park areas.
All three main political parties - the Liberal Party, the Democratic Party and the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong - welcomed the government's latest revised plan.