Previewing her plans to turn Hong Kong into a better and more liveable city, Mrs Lam says the public must be ready for more debates on upcoming projects and policies.

Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen coined the phrase 'progressive development' in his policy address last October, which means promoting infrastructural development on the one hand while paying heed to heritage conservation and other social dimensions on the other. The result is inexhaustible conflicts for the new minister to solve.

Mrs Lam, who hasn't had a day off this summer, sits down in her office to explain what she plans to do in her new post.

'Many people have the expectation that the Development Bureau was created to press ahead with infrastructure developments,' Mrs Lam said. 'Well, that may be so, but that is certainly not my passion in doing this job.'

On the date of her appointment, she extended an offer to meet activists fighting to preserve Queen's Pier. A meeting, in the form of a public forum, eventually took place at the pier with hundreds of participants, for whom emotions were running high. Mrs Lam was there to listen but refused to accept a precondition that the pier should not be moved or demolished.

Amid hooting and jeers, she explained that the pier had to make way for a six-lane bypass, a project which had undergone 'due process'. The explanation did not convince activists, who occupied the pier for several nights and were later removed by the police.

A year after the saga, land in front of the pier is being reclaimed, while the public awaits a decision on where the old pier will go. Looking back, Mrs Lam said she had no qualms about attending the forum. 'It's just my style. I have been to situations which were even more risky,' she said.

Mrs Lam established her trademark style long ago, when she was a civil servant. As a deputy treasury secretary 10 years ago, a job normally very much behind the scenes, she went to nursing homes and met welfare groups to discuss the introduction of reforms requiring government departments to spend public money more carefully.

As a social welfare director, she once went to the rooftop of a building to meet social workers who were bargaining for more funding. 'I went by myself,' she said. 'You cannot do a good job if you don't know what is happening at the front end.'

As head of the Development Bureau, Mrs Lam said her passion - and priority - is to strike the right balance between progress and conservation. The aim must be to build and prosper while at the same time paying attention to the important components of quality living such as culture, art, heritage and space, she said.

That's easier said than done. Just two months after taking up her post, she had a prime example of these competing priorities when the historic King Yin Lei mansion was defaced by its new owner, immediately highlighting the paucity of incentives for protecting privately owned historic buildings.

The crisis became an opportunity to introduce a land-exchange mechanism, a controversial economic incentive which some saw as favouring developers.

In this case, putting a stop to the demolition could only be done by swiftly declaring the mansion a temporary monument. It was a move sure to alarm property owners, and the decision rested entirely with Mrs Lam - who wears another hat as the Antiquities Authority. 'From the lesson of the Queen's Pier judicial review, I can tell you that particular decision was really made very professionally,' she said.

Mrs Lam confessed that she initially had no idea how to resolve the problem, and no negotiations were going on with the mansion's owner. '[Then] the Antiquities and Monuments Office sent me its report on Thursday night. The decision was made here around 10.30pm,' she said.

Next morning, she informed Mr Tsang of the decision and called an urgent Antiquities Advisory Board meeting on Friday afternoon.

'The board supported the move and we immediately moved into action,' she said. It was a month before the chief executive announced economic incentives for heritage conservation in his policy address.

The owner finally promised to repair the damage at his own cost and he was granted a site of similar size. Mrs Lam said this was the only case that had deviated from the due process.

'Life is full of surprises. It started off very badly, with Cable TV broadcasting the demolition. But then it ended quite nicely as a major breakthrough in our heritage conservation policy,' she said. Shrugging off accusations of favouring developers, she continues to push for flexible land use. In March, the bureau designated sites for hotel developments - to be acquired at a lower cost than those for apartments and offices - to facilitate tourism.

Mrs Lam is not averse to using land resources to achieve social objectives. One example is creating jobs for the struggling community of Tin Shui Wai by scrapping low-rise residential developments at two sites totalling 14 hectares next to the Wetland Park. The sites are now designated for a training centre for construction workers and possibly factory shopping outlets to attract mainland tourists.

The minister is also looking to designate sites for hospitals, which would allow private hospitals to acquire sites from the land sales list to extend their operations. Such an initiative could be a solution for Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital. It planned to double its capacity by replacing its eight-storey building with a high-rise but it was unfeasible after height restrictions were imposed in Happy Valley.

Despite her well-publicised heritage battles, the secretary has polled well in comparison with her colleagues, according to the University of Hong Kong. But Mrs Lam is far from complacent, saying she hasn't encountered her toughest assignment yet.

Keeping her busy this summer is a policy review on the granting of extra floor space to developers in exchange for green features in urban developments. This is the next battlefield.

While admitting the policy could aggravate the 'wall effect' from increasingly large developments, Mrs Lam said it had merit, adding that the public would be presented with cases and choices during the forthcoming public consultation. 'For example, if people continue to want a balcony and clubhouses which are exempted from gross floor area calculation, can we impose other green building requirements on that building?' she asked.

Mrs Lam said telling the public which developments were involved and the amount by which they could be increased under such a policy would be controversial.

'It could affect prices of those flats in the second-hand market,' she said, adding that a discussion on this very issue was going on within the bureau.

More than 30,000 square metres were granted to Henderson Land, developer of the Grand Promenade in Sai Wan Ho, in exchange for adding environmentally friendly features to the residential development, a report compiled by the Audit Department in 2005 found. The revelation prompted a review of the policy, which has dragged on for over two years.

Mrs Lam said she was ready to do battle.

The minister has another major item on her wish list and that is to revitalise Victoria Harbour, which she called an unpolished diamond. After the setting up of the harbourfront watchdog four years ago, Mrs Lam said she had not ruled out establishing a harbour authority.

'Down the road, the harbour authority could be like a management authority,' she said, likening it to that set up to manage the arts hub in West Kowloon. Unlike port authorities overseas, a Hong Kong harbour authority did not necessarily have to own the land, she said, but could be responsible for designing the waterfront and managing facilities.

Amid a non-stop working schedule, the secretary has already arranged trips to Sydney, Melbourne, New York and Wellington to look for a suitable management model for enhancing the harbourfront as an accessible and vibrant facility.

Given all these complicated tasks and the upcoming policy address, Mrs Lam will be in the spotlight in the coming months. The government is expected to announce a plausible reduction in the development density above Nam Cheong and Yuen Long stations along the West Rail line.

But the question remains: how much profit is the government willing to give up for a city with more fresh air?

With the end of the public consultation on the new Central Waterfront, the bureau is also expected to determine the new home for Queen's Pier.

Having brought outspoken critics into a committee steering the review on urban renewal strategy, is a radical change in the current approach to development possible?

'The more we move in this direction [enhancing quality of life], the more difficult it will become because it will touch the nerves of many people,' Mrs Lam said.

Hong Kong the way Carrie Lam wants it

1 Health sector Designate sites for which private hospitals could tender to extend their operations

2 Environment Developers building green features in exchange for more floor space to be regulated by a set of environmental rules

3 Harbour Waterfront areas to be managed by a harbour authority similar to the one controlling the arts hub in West Kowloon

4 Heritage More commercial partnership arrangements among the upcoming refurbishments of historic buildings