Tom Yam

Opinion | Why Lantau reclamation would breed a white elephant, and there’s nothing ‘unavoidable’ about it

Tom Yam says the rising tide of voices in favour of large-scale reclamation as the only solution to Hong Kong’s housing crisis is based on skewed numbers and represents the interests of the developer and big business lobby that will profit from the scheme

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Tom Yam

Published: 5:00am, 21 Aug 2018Updated: 10:15am, 21 Aug 2018

Reclamation is unavoidable, says Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor. What’s more, it must be “large scale” to create land for urgently needed housing and for long-term economic development. You can be sure a large chunk of Lam’s policy address will lay out reclamation as the solution to most, if not all, of Hong Kong's problems.

But is it? Even green groups would agree that near-shore, cost-effective reclamation should be considered. But the extremely high cost, complexity, risks and environmental consequences of large-scale reclamation in the middle of the sea make it a wholly different animal. And that animal will turn out to be the kind of white elephant beloved of property tycoons and construction companies.

Let's put a name to the large-scale reclamation that Lam favours: the East Lantau Metropolis, proposed by the government. It is estimated this artificial island of 1,000 hectares, to house up to 700,000 people, will cost HK$470 billion. But even an animal as massive as this is not monstrous enough for the Our Hong Kong Foundation, a think tank chaired by former chief executive Tung Chee-hwa. It is now lobbying for an Enhanced East Lantau Metropolis, doubling the size to 2,200 hectares of reclaimed land, housing up to 1.1 million at an estimated cost of HK$700 billion.

Before committing to the biggest infrastructure project in Hong Kong’s history, likely to take 20 to 30 years, costing more than the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge, third runway and high-speed rail link to the mainland combined, detailed scrutiny of its viability is imperative. Astoundingly, in glossy brochures and glib speeches, government and foundation officials deploy skewed projections, emotive images and feel-good scenarios in place of serious analysis.

They begin by inflating the demand for land. The government puts demand at 4,800 hectares, on the assumption that 300,000 buildings older than 75 years need to be redeveloped. By lowering the threshold to 50 years, Our Hong Kong Foundation bloated the buildings that need to be developed to 600,000. It further increased the demand for land to 9,000 hectares by assuming a plot ratio of 3.6, much less than the Planning Department’s guideline of 6.5 for new development areas. Many experts consider these estimates excessive.