Cap the population … then plan our city, green group tells CY Leung
Green group says C.Y. Leung's approach to planning is back to front and must change
The government must set a cap on Hong Kong's population in a reversal of its previous approach to town planning, a leading environmental organisation says.
Speaking ahead of Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying's policy address on Wednesday, the Conservancy Association's senior campaign manager, Peter Li Siu-man, said the government risked repeating the planning mistakes of the past unless it considered how many people the city could realistically accommodate.
The idea of setting a limit on population has been widely debated, despite the fact the government explicitly ruled the idea out when it launched a consultation on population policy last month.
"Instead of setting a cap then doing the town planning, which is the correct approach, we are doing the exact opposite," Li said, adding that the thinking seemed to be that there was "unlimited land supply."
"But does that mean we have to use all this land to build homes … with no public facilities?" he asked.
Li said the idea of a population cap was first touted in 1948, when British town planner Professor Patrick Abercrombie set out the first master plan for the then-colony. He put the figure at two million, based on the scarcity of land. The population now stands at more than 7 million.
