Carrie Lam changes plan for HK$10 billion waterfront authority
Breaking from campaign pledge, city leader now proposes district-based bodies looking after highly anticipated 73km project
Hong Kong’s leader revealed a change of position on developing the city’s waterfront, now departing from a highly anticipated plan for a HK$10 billion statutory authority to manage the prime location.
“The harbourfront authority was conceived by me in my last year as development secretary [in 2012] ... but five years down the road, I now tend to have a different view,” Lam said on a radio programme on Friday.
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“Instead of having a single harbourfront authority comprising non-officials to look after the harbourfront, why shouldn’t we have a more district-based sort of trust that could look after certain parts of the harbourfront that would reflect characteristics of that particular district and that would give people more opportunity to participate?”
Harbourfront projects are at present managed by various government bodies and fall under the Harbourfont Commission, which advises the government on development. The idea of having a one-stop, powerful harbour authority was raised during the chief executive’s policy address in 2013.
The independent statutory body would require HK$10.2 billion to set up, and the money would be allocated towards developing eight sites at the outset.