During Development Secretary Michael Wong’s meeting on November 27 with the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council seeking HK$550 million to conduct a planning and engineering study of the Lantau Tomorrow Vision , he continued the government’s practice of misleading Hong Kong about this project. He said that advanced technology will be used to conduct reclamation. However, the technology of “deep cement mixing” used to replace dredging is exorbitantly expensive and can be practically applied only in a selected small area. The majority of the reclaimed area would still need to be dredged. The dredged seabed would have to be deposited in other areas of the sea, contaminating it. Mr Wong said that construction waste will constitute at least 50 per cent of the fill material used in the project. According to a government report, only about 15 million tonnes of construction waste is available each year. Construction waste is not enough to supply half the 250 million tonnes of fill required to reclaim 1,000 hectares of land when a three-year reclamation timetable is proposed. If machine sand is used as fill instead of sea sand for the other 50 per cent of fill required, the entire land area where the sand is harvested, and its ecosystem, will be destroyed. Instead of sea, land will be destroyed. Invoking the Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors report , which said that the cost of construction can be recovered by selling land in the Lantau Tomorrow project, Mr Wong did not seem to realise that with the recommended sale price to developers of HK$10,000 to HK$12,000 per square foot for private housing units, the so-called accommodation value, the price of a 800 sq ft private flat would be about HK$15 million, which is beyond the means of most Hongkongers. The Hong Kong 2030+ plan forecast that the city faced a shortfall of only 1 million square metres of central business district grade A office space while the surplus of general business office space and non-CBD grade A office space amounted to 3.55 million square metres and 1.26 million square metres respectively. Mr Wong has claimed that 4 million square metres will be allocated for commercial development, boosting the revenue from land sales and exaggerating the need for additional commercial space. Seldom has so complex a project costing so much been presented in such a haphazard and incompetent manner. Without a rigorous due diligence assessment performed by an independent professional body, the Lantau Tomorrow Vision will be a white elephant. Tom Yam, Lantau