Editorial | Give and take needed for Fanling project

A plan to house tens of thousands of poor people in a development on a luxury golf club course is bound to be contentious. It pits conservation against development, and social privilege against community need.

Compromise in such circumstances is often the way forward. The 12,000-flat public housing project on land to be resumed at the Hong Kong Golf Club’s old course at Fanling is a prime example of this.

The Advisory Council on the Environment has backed an ecological impact statement on the controversial development, but it has asked the authorities to revise the layout to preserve a 0.39 hectare patch of woodland with 186 trees, including 20 incense trees – considered vulnerable internationally. Authorities had suggested the woodland area was only of low to medium ecological value.

Now housing experts have suggested that efforts to preserve the woodland could trigger changes to planning rules at the project. They say the government could tailormake the residential blocks to allow for it, or apply to raise their height limit, although one surveyor warned that building the towers higher would affect the visual impact on the sensitive, high-profile site.

Given the long wait for public housing and the shortage of land, the government will not want to cut the number of flats. But the layout plan is not final. As one town planner said, rightly, planning is about give and take and the government should do its best to incorporate expert feedback, perhaps by using creative designs.