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Yuen Long residents fear eviction as government mulls public housing project

Plans to develop a greenbelt site in Yuen Long could see three villages displaced, as government considers plans for 4,000 public housing flats

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Ng Kwai-ngor, 80, who has lived in Wang Chau for about 70 years, may be forced to move. Photo: Edward Wong
Shirley Zhao

Tenants at a controversial plot of land in Yuen Long are worried they may be evicted as the government is under pressure to speed up a plan to build public housing on the site.

They have also questioned the feasibility of the plan, saying an industrial zone next to the site will make the area unfit for living.

A plan to build 17,000 public housing flats on the 33-hectare brownfield site – agricultural land in rural parts of the New Territories occupied by various industrial operations – in Wang Chau first surfaced in 2013. However, the government later scaled down the plan and opted to build 4,000 flats on a nearby 5.6-hectare greenbelt site – a heavily vegetated area under stricter planning rules – ­involving three non-indigenous villages.
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Newly-elected lawmaker ­Eddie Chu Hoi-dick, who has criticised the government for succumbing to opposition from rural strongmen with triad links and vested interests in the brownfield site, is under police protection after receiving death threats.

Residents living in the affected villages urged the government to develop the brownfield site first before taking their homes away.

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A source said the Housing Department is now considering revisiting the original plan. The government said that it had simply taken the greenbelt site plan as priority.

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