City Beat | Where there’s a will, there’s a way out for Hong Kong – just where’s that will coming from, though?
- The Lands Department on Thursday announced its plan to get back 784 private lots with a total area of 68 hectares to make way for affordable housing
- But the city’s political unrest cannot be quelled merely by grabbing more land back from developers to meet the government’s housing targets
“Where there is a will, there is a way,” the old saying goes. While it may be a bit of a cliché, applying it to Hong Kong’s situation makes sense, but only with a prerequisite – self initiative to develop that will, rather than being pushed by others.
As National Day approaches, extremists in Hong Kong’s months-long anti-government protests are building up last-minute momentum for a massive showdown on October 1 to embarrass Beijing, which is in a completely different, celebratory mood for the 70th anniversary.
There is a bit of black humour here: while protesters, especially the radicals, are complaining about Beijing’s grip on the city, it is Beijing that is actually pushing the embattled local government out of its passiveness to do something about the immediate and underlying problems causing so much public discontent.
A telling case is the recent enthusiasm shown by the administration to tackle the city’s notorious housing problem.
Two weeks after a blunt commentary from Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily urged the Hong Kong government to make good use of existing legal means at its disposal to acquire more land for affordable housing, the Lands Department last Thursday posted notices on its official website, announcing its plan to get back 784 private lots with a total area of 68 hectares, as well as an area of 752 sq m occupied by nine private graves, giving the occupants three months’ notice, plus proper compensation.
