Carrie Lam policy address: massive housing plan near Hong Kong’s border to play starring role in speech, but vision has its critics

Blueprint calls for expanding on existing plan for New Territories North and will be comparable in scale with Lantau Tomorrow Vision, sources say
Proposal could make it easier for villagers to sell ancestral land, releasing abandoned farmland and earmarking funds to buy private holdings

Carrie Lam policy address 2021

Olga WongandJoyce Ng

Published: 12:34pm, 5 Oct 2021

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Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s last policy address of this term will feature a massive plan for “comprehensive development” near Hong Kong’s border with mainland China, along with initiatives to boost land supply for housing and grow the economy, the Post has learned.

The border area development will expand an existing new town project to cover vast swathes of land across New Territories North, making it comparable in scale with the ambitious reclamation scheme off Lantau Island that Lam proposed three years ago.

The strategy will be in keeping with the nation’s 14th five-year economic and social development plan that envisions Hong Kong becoming an international innovation and technology centre.

Carrie Lam holds up copies of her policy address during her weekly media briefing. Photo: Nora Tam

Observers say developing the border area may be a faster-track option in terms of land supply than the contentious “Lantau Tomorrow Vision” to create a new metropolis on man-made islands, but critics are warning of planning imbalance and conservation concerns.

A source with knowledge of Lam’s policy report said: “All the initiatives presented are very long-term, in terms of decades. Lam has mentioned that housing supply will increase significantly in 10 years.”

The insider spoke of expanding the government’s existing New Territories North plan, currently at a planning and design stage, into a massive development “comparable in scale” with the Lantau Tomorrow Vision.

The original project, earmarked as one of the two long-term sources of land supply alongside the Lantau plan, was to cover 1,450 hectares (3,580 acres).

Many pro-Beijing groups have put forward various proposals in recent weeks to expand the New Territories North project to complement the national development blueprint, with some calling for it to be more than doubled in size.

How the city should further tap into the Greater Bay Area project integrating Hong Kong with other southern Chinese cities to form an economic hub would be another highlight, the source said, and government restructuring would be another area of focus.

More transitional homes for those waiting for public housing will be provided, but few measures to improve people’s livelihoods are expected.

The repackaged blueprint could include making it easier for villagers in the New Territories to sell ancestral land for building homes, releasing wetlands and abandoned farmland near the border for mixed development, and earmarking funds to acquire private land for housing, according to earlier sources.

The Post reported last month that a billion-dollar rail project would be built at Hung Shui Kiu, a planned new town in New Territories West, to link the city with neighbouring Shenzhen’s Qianhai economic zone.

The chief executive on Tuesday said she was attaching huge importance to the final policy address of her current term, promising to deliver a packed blueprint in a lengthy speech that would summarise her administration’s achievements over the last four years.

She has yet to reveal whether she will run for a second term, ahead of the next leadership race in March.

Having held 40 consultation sessions attended by 3,500 people from various sectors, Lam said, it was clear that Hong Kong’s housing woes and land supply were the issues that residents cared about most.

The severe shortage of affordable housing in particular has prompted Beijing to exert pressure on the local government.

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In July, Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office director Xia Baolong called on the city to be rid of tiny, subdivided flats and “cage homes” by 2049. Luo Huining, Beijing’s top representative in the city, followed up by visiting tenants of such homes on National Day last week and urging everyone to work together to solve the problem.

Luo’s liaison office issued a press release on Tuesday night detailing home visits that he and seven colleagues had made over the past week, and describing how residents felt hopeful after officials’ assurances.

The Lantau Tomorrow Vision, which will create 1,200 hectares of artificial islands, may cost up to HK$600 billion (US$77 billion), and is viewed by critics and sceptics as “too long-term” to meet Hong Kong’s pressing housing problems.

Surveyor Vincent Ho Kui-yip, who recently founded a new platform for exchanging ideas to develop the north of Hong Kong, said an enlarged version of the New Territories North project would make sense. He said it could link up with four other new development areas under planning or construction – Kwu Tung, Fanling North, San Tin and Lok Ma Chau Loop.

“Officials should also think out of the box and do the planning with a priority to develop new industries. It is also time to review the value of some wetlands; adjacent land in Shenzhen has been densely developed over time,” Ho said.

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Chan Kim-ching, founder of land concern group Liber Research Community, cautioned against “indiscriminately opening up” New Territories North.

“The planning principle for this part of Hong Kong has always been striking a balance between development and ecological conservation, and harmony between the countryside and the city,”

Chan said. “But what we’ve heard so far seems this is disregarded.”

Additional reporting by Jeffie Lam and Denise Tsang

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Lam to unveil grand blueprint for border area