Hong Kong must not sacrifice the public interest in deals with landowners

The Task force on Land Supply, appointed by the Hong Kong government, is entering its fourth month of public consultation amid serial protests at its public engagement forums and cross-spectrum criticism of its methodology and divisive outcomes. While the consultation is unlikely to foster community-wide consensus on controversial land supply options, the government’s policy preferences are becoming increasingly crystal clear.

In early July, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor indicated, in her “personal capacity”, that she favoured reclamation. Sing Tao Daily, a pro-government newspaper, reported in late July that the government favoured turning the Land and Development Advisory Committee, currently chaired by engineer Greg Wong Chak-yan, the vice-chairman of the land supply task force, into a platform for “public-private partnership” in unlocking the roughly 1,000 hectares of agricultural land hoarded by developers.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with public-private partnership in development. Hong Kong’s history of development is replete with successful stories of cooperation between government and business to meet the changing developmental needs of the community.

A good example is Mei Foo Sun Chuen, Hong Kong’s first large-scale private residential development on the waterfront of West Kowloon. The development was made possible by government approval for Mobil Oil (Hong Kong) Ltd to relocate its large petroleum storage facility to Tsing Yi to release land to meet Hong Kong’s housing needs.