Letters | HKU ‘floating lab’ plan needs a rethink
- Our readers write about the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of a HKU plan to build over a green-belt site, a lawmaker’s suggestion to facilitate Victoria Habour reclamation, and the difficulties of changing Hong Kong dollars in Macau

The Faculty of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong is proposing to build a 43,000 sq m laboratory complex on giant legs floating above a green-belt site near Queen Mary Hospital.
Renderings were publicised to garner community support, to convince the Town Planning Board to rezone the green-belt site, and to convince the Legislative Council to approve funding. One resident, an engineer, who surveyed the site concluded that it could not be built as presented.
Indeed, the HKU admits in an email to residents that “building layouts shown in the presentation materials are conceptual design only”.
The development site is steep, and dissected by water courses and the Hong Kong West Drainage Tunnel. The MTR had previously rejected the site as unsuitable for a Queen Mary station. Development here defies the laws of physics.
Besides structural needs, access via Pok Fu Lam Road is not advisable. There is a major bus stop and there is no other flat space. Access would require a diversion of Victoria Road onto a new viaduct to cross the Kong Sin Wan valley. This would significantly impact cost, time and the environment.
Besides the loss of green belt and 500 trees, residents have other concerns. The primary use of the complex is for laboratories working with biosafety risk group 3 microorganisms, macromolecular complexes, stem cells, wet chemicals, soft tissues and animals. Residents are deeply concerned about biohazards.