Country park outskirts can be developed to alleviate Hong Kong's housing shortage, to the benefit of all
Lau Ping Cheung says a tiny portion of land bordering the country parks could be turned into housing
For too long, society has been bogged down in a dispute on whether to release certain areas of Hong Kong's country parks for housing and other development purposes. While I agree that our country parks provide a respite from the daily hustle and bustle, acting as our city's lungs, nature reserves and leisure spaces, I also hold the belief that they are not untouchable. With careful and proper planning, development and preservation can co-exist.
Development in some carefully chosen fringe areas instead of the hearts of country parks would mean we avoid messing with the environment.
History tells us that the city's nine new towns - including Sha Tin and Tai Po, and which together house about half of Hong Kong's 7.24 million people - were built alongside or abutting ecologically non-sensitive outskirts of country parks. The same model can certainly be repeated for the next new town, especially in fringe locations of country parks with low ecological value that are sparsely vegetated and are relatively close to existing transport and other developed areas. These towns or estates can share existing infrastructure, as well as government and social/community facilities, making them relatively less expensive to develop within a shorter time span.
With these criteria in mind, I have identified about 170 hectares on the western fringe of Tai Lam Country Park that abuts the Tai Lam Tunnel's toll area. With proper planning, this land could be used to build about 30,000 housing units (based on a 6:4 ration, for 18,000 public and 12,000 private housing units) or about 21/2 times the size of Tai Koo Shing.
It's about time we stopped dwelling on the moral high ground and getting stuck in the cycle of disputes
It's easily accessible via the Route 3 Country Park Section by constructing new access roads and infrastructure, and it is only 1.5km from the Kam Sheung Road MTR station, where Kam Tin South development is being proposed for about 34,000 housing units with a shopping mall, schools and other facilities on 152 hectares.
The fact that country parks are all government-owned and would therefore eliminate all land acquisition compensation and disputes also means that the cost to build infrastructure on this land should be about HK$8 billion to HK$9 billion. That means the per-unit infrastructure cost would be just about HK$300,000.