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Hong Kong housing
OpinionComment

Hong Kong doesn’t need a vast new town rising from the seas off Lantau

Tom Yam says the government’s vision for the East Lantau Metropolis rests on flimsy rationale, amid a lack of political will to secure targeted land elsewhere from vested interests

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Tom Yam says the government’s vision for the East Lantau Metropolis rests on flimsy rationale, amid a lack of political will to secure targeted land elsewhere from vested interests
Tom Yam
The East Lantau Metropolis will be the costliest contingency plan in the world: hundreds of billions spent to provide for an unlikely 10 per cent increase in population. Illustration: Ingo Fast
The East Lantau Metropolis will be the costliest contingency plan in the world: hundreds of billions spent to provide for an unlikely 10 per cent increase in population. Illustration: Ingo Fast
No sane investor commits to a project to be completed in 30 years with no data supporting the need for it, no estimate of the capital required, and no cost-benefit and risk analysis.
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Unless it is the Hong Kong government, using taxpayer money, to build what it calls the “East Lantau Metropolis”.

This metropolis takes pride of place in the Development Bureau and Planning Department’s study, “Hong Kong 2030+: Towards a Planning Vision and Strategy Transcending 2030”, due to be presented to the Legislative Council’s development panel on November 8.
A banner against the East Lantau Metropolis hangs on Kau Yi Chau island, put up by the Save Lantau Alliance on June 26. Photo: K. Y. Cheng
A banner against the East Lantau Metropolis hangs on Kau Yi Chau island, put up by the Save Lantau Alliance on June 26. Photo: K. Y. Cheng

Hong Kong environmentalists unfurl protest banner on Kau Yi Chau against plan for ‘East Lantau Metropolis’

According to this “planning vision”, the East Lantau Metropolis will be created by reclaiming land around two islands east of Lantau and connecting them to Mui Wo in south Lantau. On these 1,000 hectares will rise housing for 400,000 to 700,000 people, and a business district, with essential infrastructure such as utilities, telecommunications, schools and clinics. Bridges or tunnels and railways totalling 29km will link this vast new town with the rest of Lantau, Hong Kong Island and Kowloon.

Development secretary Paul Chan (left) and Ling Kar-kan, director of planning, at a press conference on the public engagement exercise for “Hong Kong 2030+: Towards a Planning Vision and Strategy Transcending 2030” on October 27. Photo: Felix Wong
Development secretary Paul Chan (left) and Ling Kar-kan, director of planning, at a press conference on the public engagement exercise for “Hong Kong 2030+: Towards a Planning Vision and Strategy Transcending 2030” on October 27. Photo: Felix Wong
Clearly, the metropolis will be the most expensive infrastructure project in Hong Kong’s history, probably costing as much as the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, the high-speed railway to Guangzhou and the third runway combined. Yet the government has not explained why the project is necessary, other than the anodyne rationale of “strategic long-term growth”.
According to the government’s own figures on population and housing, this metropolis is bound to become the mother of all white elephants
Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying mooted the concept of the East Lantau Metropolis in his January 2014 policy address. Just three months later, his government requested HK$227 million for a feasibility study on reclaiming land for the metropolis. After barely 90 minutes of discussion at Legco’s development panel, the request was approved by 10-3 votes, thanks to pro-government legislators.
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Since then, four requests to conduct an analysis of the need for such a metropolis in the context of population growth and housing supply have been rejected.

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