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Hong Kong housing
OpinionLetters

Letters | Look ahead to the Northern Metropolis and leave Victoria Harbour alone

  • Readers discuss the many implications of Carrie Lam’s housing plans for Hong Kong, including a proposed major development next to the mainland border

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A view of the northern New Territories of Hong Kong, with Shenzhen in the background. Photo: Winson Wong
Letters
The chief executive’s vision of developing the northern New Territories for Hong Kong’s future should be supported.

The New Territories have an area of about 96,000 hectares, which is seven times the combined size of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. Because of the historical political background, only an estimated quarter of the land area there has been developed.

The Joint Declaration signed between China and the United Kingdom in 1984 made the New Territories a part of the Hong Kong special administrative region. Politically, the New Territories therefore became the same as Hong Kong Island and Kowloon after the handover to China in 1997.

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Yet, even now, the New Territories region is still governed under a different law (the New Territories Ordinance), which creates a different class of land (land held under “Block Government Leases”) and a different class of people (“indigenous inhabitants”) with different legal rights and standing. Such anomalies should be resolved without delay in order not to hinder the development of the New Territories.
As the vast areas of land in the New Territories still available for development are many times what is left of the harbour, it is wrong to still propose reclaiming the little that remains of the harbour.
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The bill to amend the Protection of the Harbour Ordinance, put forward by some members of the Legislative Council, is misconceived and unnecessary. The proposed bill will make 90 per cent of the harbour available for further reclamation and take away the right of Hong Kong people to protect most of the harbour.

To meet Hong Kong’s housing, economic and recreational demands over the next three decades, 3,000 hectares of land will be needed. If we acquired this land by reclaiming the 3,000-odd hectares that still remain of the harbour, there would be no harbour left.
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