Fringes of Hong Kong’s country parks earmarked as possible housing sites, minister says, reiterating support for Lantau Tomorrow plan
- Secretary for Development Bernadette Linn says government ‘not excluding studying individual fringes of country parks’, but sites are not easy land grabs
- Authorities committed to ambitious plan to create man-made islands for development of metropolis off Lantau Island, she adds
The fringes of Hong Kong’s country parks could be considered as possible housing plots, the city’s development minister has said, as she underlined the government’s commitment to the creation of a metropolis on reclaimed land off Lantau Island.
Proposals to develop individual park sections would be studied at appropriate times, Secretary for Development Bernadette Linn Hon-ho told a television programme on Sunday, but did not say when surveys would be carried out.
The option was not included among proposals to tackle the city’s housing shortage featured in Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu’s maiden policy address last month. But Linn said the subject had been mentioned in the past on several occasions.
“We have openly talked about this many times. We have not excluded studying individual fringes of country parks, but we are not talking about the exploitation of country parks,” she said.
Linn added that, despite the streamlining of procedures, it would take at least four years to complete the necessary feasibility studies, assessments and land formation works.
