Bulk of land set aside for contentious Hong Kong housing project in private hands, reports reveal
Newly released reports show at least half of the privately owned area comprises brownfield sites with car parks, container storage areas and recycling yards
Almost 70 per cent of land at a site set aside for a controversial public housing development in Wang Chau, Yuen Long is in private hands, a long-awaited set of feasibility reports shows.
The government released the 16 reports comprising some 3,000 pages yesterday amid heightened public concern over the Wang Chau project. The reports were submitted between 2012 and 2014, but the government initially withheld them.
The reports showed at least half of the 13 hectares of private land are brownfield sites, which are degraded agricultural land rented out to operations such as car parks, container storage space, recycling yards and vehicle repair centres, according to the reports.
A total of 11 per cent of the land is collectively owned, the studies showed. Many of these lots are also brownfield sites with co-owners living off rental income.
The government has cited the complex land ownership and the lack of a policy for relocating industrial operations as one of the reasons why it made a controversial decision to defer building public housing on Wang Chau’s brownfield sites, including the collectively owned sites and other privately owned lots.
But lawmaker-elect Edward Yiu Chung-yim, of the architecture and surveying sector, said the reports, which proposed the project should be completed by 2026, confirmed the plan was technically feasible.
Yiu questioned why the government decided to shelve part of the project involving the brownfield sites and go ahead with the part involving an environmentally valuable greenbelt site,which would displace three non-indigenous villages.
The reports proposed dividing the 19-hectare public housing project into three phases, with the first phase, involving 4,000 flats on the greenbelt site, to be completed in 2024 and the second and third phases, involving 13,000 flats on the brownfield sites, to be ready two years later.
But in 2014, the government decided to set aside the second and third phases and only proceed with the first. This came after informal meetings with powerful rural leaders with vested interests in the brownfield sites.
The reports showed that 99 operations were occupying the brownfield sites, but the government blacked out their names and locations, citing privacy.
“The timetable in the studies was only based on technical factors,” said a source in the Housing Department, which commissioned the studies. “The studies did not take into consideration local stakeholders’ opinions and the government’s review of its brownfield policies.”
The source said with a Hong Kong-wide brownfield study about to start next year and another expected to be completed in mid-2018, the department was also planning to commission a study on the feasibility of developing the second and third phases, expected to start next year for completion within two years.
The source also cited the reports, which showed the second and third phases would require more roadworks and a new drainage and electricity supply system, which would pose difficulties in implementing the plan in a short time.
But Yiu said the studies had already confirmed the feasibility of the project. He wondered what kind of information the government had received from its informal meetings with the rural strongmen.
“If the consultant said it was technically feasible for all three phases of the project to be carried out at the same time, what is the reason for the government to push back the second and third phases of the development indefinitely?” Yiu said.
Lawrence Poon Wing-cheung, a senior lecturer at City University on housing policies and a Town Planning Board member, urged the government to come up with an estimated timetable for the completion of the second and third phases.
“The estimation of the time frame may not be accurate, but at least it means the government is heading in a certain direction and will be held accountable for it,” Poon said.
