WWF Hong Kong

Transcription

Good morning, welcome to Backchat, I'm Hugh Chiverton, your co-host this Friday is Danny Gittings Danny, good morning to you good morning ... and we're talking today about reclamation and rock caverns as the government launches the second stage of consultation of plans for reclamation of land outside Victoria Harbour, five sites identified as possible and the idea of the large artificial islands also floated, what do you think of those ideas if we have reclamation, where is best, and what should be on it? and do we need spare land and reserve, call us on 2338 8266 with your answers, or email [email protected] or you can go to our FaceBook page and comment there, that's BackChat on RTHK, Radio 3, that's our FaceBook page we want to hear from you today's World Water Day, after 9:15 we're going to be talking about water quality but first to reclamation, we have with us Edwin Tong who's head of the Civil Engineering Office, Civil Engineering and Development Department Samantha Lee, Senior Conservation Officer Marine, at WWF Hong Kong and Paul Zimmerman, District Counselor and Convener of Designing Hong Kong, good morning to all of you Mr Tong, let's start with you, good morning, thank you very much for joining us let's start from the basics and the need for reclamation and the need for this emphasis on reclamation you are going ahead with this second stage, but in the first stage you did a consultation on the idea of reclamation and um... the findings from when you asked the public about this were, well let's see, the report says that strong opposition was expressed that there was no consensus on increasing land supply through reclamation outside Victoria Harbour ... given that ... why are you going ahead, or why did you bother to have a public consultation in the first place? if people, by and large said no yes, let's look at the results of the stage one public engagement which took place from November 2011 to March 2012 the results we got from the public we have three main themes that we got from the public first of all the majority of them, more than eighty percent said that we do need more land in Hong Kong about seventy percent said that they support adequate land reserve in Hong Kong and most importantly, more than half of the public surveyed have expressed the view that multi-pronged approach should be continued, multi-pronged approach meaning that we can continue with the six prong approach: re-zoning land, redevelopment land resumption, reclamation, rock cavern development in reuse of (unclear) sites you're right just for the reclamation, the views are quite varied from the questionnaires, we have more support on reclamation but from telephone calls we have less support on reclamation more opposition in that area but we do see a trend that a lot of these opposing views, are anchored on particular sites because in the middle of the stage one public engagement we have illustrated, for illustrative purposes, we've introduced twenty five sites for discussion many of these oppositions were anchored on particular sites so one thing ... hang on, the telephone poll was Hong Kong wide wasn't it? you weren't asking people only in the areas that would be affected you were presumably phoning everybody in Hong Kong ... that's right, a sample that cross-section of people in Hong Kong was the one which decisively by quite a large margin um ... more than 13% against reclamation well that doesn't seem to suggest that is just people worried about reclamation going on ... the surveys and questionnaires were also Hong Kong wide they can fill in questionnaires from the website so we do have different views from these two areas but one thing we did see, was that the selection of site is very important because, other than these views we do see two particular points one is the effect on the community is very important, many of them say that we don't need reclamation in a particular site because it's quite near to our home the other thing is the environmental effect uh... environmental protection is the major uh... thing that they say that we need to look into when selecting sites and coming out from that uh... before we come to this stage two of public engagement, we selected five sites based on these themes, that is, we try to avoid environmental sensitive areas such as shorelines out of these 25 sites the 5 sites we have selected, doesn't have very high ecological value shorelines we're not talking about uh... ecology outside shorelines, but at first we have to select, we have to avoid shorelines which are ecologically sensitive the other thing is, we try to avoid, communities which are very close by, because of the views we got from stage one but all you know, we are still trying to have the six prong approach going on that means, reclamation is only one part of the jigsaw puzzle let's bring in Samantha Lee, a Senior Conservation Officer from Marine WWF Hong Kong, because you've expressed quite strong views about the government of pushing ahead with reclamation as part of this six (unclear) despite the feedback that we've seen in round one Morning everyone, I think um... the government, when they announced the result of the stage one consultation, they kind of missed out one thing, because we also looked through the report and when we looked at the the telephone as well as the online questionnaire, among those six options we found that reclamation they have, they have the highest proportion of the people that do not support the option ... it was the least popular option how about Mr Tong's point that on the feedback forms, the questionnaire it was different though, it was not so unpopular there, so one form of public opinion which wasn't necessarily against, very strongly against reclamation And also from that qualitative report, we also look at for example some people, they can vote for, agree or support or against certain sites, and then we can find that some sites for example like uh... Tseung Kwan O or Wu Kai Sha ( 烏溪沙) , they had really high amount of people they oppose because of the view of other criteria, but for the other site for example the location chosen by the government which is Siu Ho Wan (小蠔灣), Lung Kwu Tan (龍鼓灘) because there are, not too many residents living there, and that's why they could not really voice out their voice, because (unclear) they could not really voice out, that's why I am just afraid maybe the government they also choose the location because of these kind of number of people opposed in certain sites I just want to speak up for the marine life, and marine environment here but when they look, when they did survey everybody in Hong Kong by the telephone survey, or through the questionnaires, they are territory wide people are still thinking of, of the whole territory aren't they, and that includes the natural environment Well, I have to explain one thing, and in the stage one public engagement, there are two types of surveys, one is quantitative that includes the questionnaires, and the telephone polls, the other is written submissions and signature campaigns and so on and so forth the total number of views received are more than forty thousand and the vast majority of them are signature campaigns against certain sites so uh... the the qualitative survey [by] telephone is part of it but we received 32 signature campaigns against certain sites that's why we think that selection of sites is very important and that's why we selected these sites, which we do think are less ecologically sensitive they are mainly man-made shorelines and what we have avoided is ... natural shorelines and areas we have mangroves, and things like that the reality, when you talk about a six pronged approach the paper you be published is only about reclamation and rock caverns and redevelopment like that is only a tiny amount of land is being freed up by them in comparison, with reclamation you must be talking about 90% of the total yes that's right but one thing we also want to share with the public is the concept of land reserve in the stage two public engagement, which we just kicked off yesterday we want to share with the public the beauty of the land reserve in Hong Kong for future development, for the next generation, we do need an adequate and stable supply of land and reclamation is the most suitable mode of land development to provide land reserve because firstly it does not affect existing land uses you just look at the development plans in the New Territories East, and Hung Shui Kiu (洪水橋) there are a lot of discussion on the land issues secondly uh... reclamation, by its nature can form relatively large pieces of land for better planning and thirdly, land reserve can uh... address sudden needs, sudden economic challenges that present to Hong Kong and that's why we do need land reserve and an additional beauty of reclamation is this is the creation of new land, and it can provide land for (decanting) sites for rehousing residents in other modes, like resumption, like development of New Territories, we do need some new land for decanting of facilities, residents and even economic activities reclamation can complement that part ... let's bring in Paul Zimmerman, District Councillor in Southern District, Convener of Designing Hong Kong, good morning Paul I'm just looking at an article from last year, you've expressed skepticism in the past about whether Hong Kong does need such a large land bank do you want to respond? well, we are opposed to the idea of a land reserve and I think uh ... Edwin Tong's argument that by collecting large pieces of land will allow better planning let's all look at what is the latest reclamation of Hong Kong has achieved and where we have uh... we can see whether we had better planning, and that's the Kowloon West reclamation along the Tsim Sha Tsui, Tai Kok Tsui waterfront that was on one side we have the highway to the new airport if you go to that piece of land, does anybody feel that there was planning there can you walk from Lai Chi Kok all the way down to Kowloon ... hang on, there are two separate things here, whether that was planned well and whether we actually need a land reserve, now are you saying we don't need a land reserve at all? so, when you do the idea that we need a land reserve with an undesignated use, which is what is being suggested here, [then] I think that we have to caution against it dramatically, because we see that if you have a land reserve without a designated use we will not necessarily end up with a good plan That's not entirely fair, I mean they have suggested uses for all these six projects they talk about some for residential, is it Sunny Bay as a tourism district and so on, they are suggesting uses when they designate them ... so now look at the current and the latest list of reclamations, most of them have a history there is uh ... so if we are going have a third runway, if we're going have a third runway for the airport we're going to need land for logistics centres this area has been identified, as a potential area for a new logistics centre the question is, is that a good area for logistics centres, and if it is, then how are we going to do it I must say that, we haven't gone ahead with this one, because so far it's been found that the logistics industry was not willing to pay for the reclamation and therefore this project hasn't gone ahead Sunny Bay's a bit open, we have an idea for putting land there, but there is no specific land use or there is no clear definition why we want it there other than there is a station ... Sunny Bay they've been talking about ever since the original Chep Lap Kok master plan wasn't it? ... before a long time that are a lot of kind of suggestions that it could because there is a station there but we have never seen any particular good plans for the landuse Ma Liu Shui (馬料水) is for me is is a a good example where there is man made shorelines existing rail lines existing road infrastructure that where there's an enormous amount of capacity, spare capacity for transport uh... so that's probably a very good site .... so you're not opposed to them all are you? no, I'm not opposed to them all, in Ma Liu Shui, we're looking at Shatin and we're looking at developing a residential neighborhood there and expanding the neighbourhood especially when we've removed the sewage treatment plant there we have a good opportunity there, but again, it must be defined from a clear urban plan, and there's got to be a good strategy behind it, not just because people are not complaining in the area ... you don't oppose on principle? you take a site by site approach, and you find some sites where there might actually be a case ... well I'd rather look at Hong Kong overall and say what are the demands for lands that we gonna need, what are the best locations for putting that land, and and so on, we have always said about the reclamation, they've gotta be a matter of last resort, you first gotta do the rezoning, we have a lot of land in the New Territories which is very inefficiently used and it's very difficult for the government to get their head around on resolving the issues there and so, if you just allow government to proceed with reclamation easily then they avoid the hard work in the New Territories, so from that perspective we've always said ... so you want to make it more difficult for them to reclaim so that they'll try other alternatives more seriously ... and resolve the New Territories where we have massive amounts of inefficiently used lands, and where we have bad land management so the government has to not avoid the hard work that is necessary ... So Samantha Lee, do you recognise the need for more land in Hong Kong, and what are your views on, a land bank or land reserve? For this bit, I'm quite conservative, because at the moment I think Hong Kong do not have a really good population policy, and for example how many people would like to have in Hong Kong, and how much land would you need for that because when we look back at the questionnaire conducted by the government, about 2600 people, they said that the government should fully utilise existing inefficiency used land rather than reclamation so, for the land reserve I'm a bit skeptical I think it's most likely that we can have land reserve but echoing what Paul Zimmerman said reclamation should be the last resort, because [once] we reclaimed the land it is irreversible, we cannot take it away, the thing is it might also really affect a lot of the marine life which are really vulnerable, particularly the Chinese White Dolphin because it is really alarming that now they have less than one hundred individuals in Hong Kong, so for having land reserve, it is need to be really careful to plan, in particular you need to think, what is the purpose because when you reclaim a land, in the future you may want to do something, and then you still need to think about the hardware for example, are you going to build anymore bridge, or lay an underwater cable also, related to occupy some certain area of the marine you really need to think thoroughly and carefully Edwin Tong, let's address that issue of the environmental concerns, I saw extracts from the press conference yesterday where they're saying that you have new reclamations, you have simulated reclamations which I must admit, I didn't really understand, but you do have ways of testing and lessening the impact on the environment that you didn't have in the past, is that correct? well let me make clear here when you look at the selection of the shorelines, we do realise that in some of the sites there will be Chinese White dophins (CWDs) but from the current record we do not know whether they are very active in the shallow water area in reclamation, we first look at the shallow water area that's why in the next stage, we do need to have the help from the experts to look at the shallow water area, whether there are a lot of dolphin activities we do see that say, 200 hundred meters and 300 metres away from the shoreline, there are some activities there that's why in the next stage, we need to have experts to work with us and also the green groups to work with us to look at the activities of the dolphins in the shallow waters, and in doing so, we are trying to be innovative and trying to think of a virtual reclamation concept that is, we try to think of some possible means to try to have a model [of the] reclamation in that area, to see how the dolphins would react to it, and in that case we can find some real information on whether the uh... dolphins are active in the areas we want to reclaim, if they are we can refine the boundary of the reclamation are you reassured by that Miss Lee? this part, we have also been discussing with the other marine specialists yesterday, and then we are also doubtful because, as more of us know that, the dolphins they don't swim to very shallow water that is really close to shoreline, because there is always a buffer zone, because near the shoreline you always have a lot of human disturbance or traffic, that's why there's always a certain distance of the buffer zone OK, you may not be able to find a lot of dolphins that are active there but after you do the reclamation, you will have a new shoreline, which the dolphins will also have to have a buffer zone, which is away from the shoreline, so you are kind of like pushing the dolphins further out into the sea and this is really dangerous because we also know that for example, in Lung Kwu Tan (龍鼓灘) there is a fairway where you always have high speed vessel travelling between Hong Kong, China and Macau, so if you push them further into the sea eventually they may have to have a higher usage of those really dangerous areas, and then you will increase the collision rate, or the disturbance by the marine traffic and marine vessel, which is we really have high concern about ... do you disagree with the government about the details, but Miss Lee, do you at least welcome the fact that the government is willing to work with environmental groups? do you think that they are sincere? they do listen to your opinions even if you do end up having disagreements for this day, I really hope that the government will listen to use more and talk more, and for example, when they decide on certain studies for example, simulation reclamation please talk about this with us, so we can keep having input, because we understand that uh... maybe in the future if the government really wants to do a reclamation in Hong Kong, we really want to give them some more input about how to minimise the impact [to] the lowest level there's also this idea that you can adjust the design of the reclamation, the sea walls that you design, from straight sea walls, to sea walls that are designed to stimulate marine life, and therefore improve the ecology in the area and there are different designs ... how about the question I put to Samantha Lee do you think the government is sincere about working with green groups? ... Well I think ... more than it used to be ... I absolutely believe that that's the case and the government is coming around to, whether they completely agree with us on the land supply strategy is a different issue, but I think that the government is definitely becoming more communicative and there is more opportunities to give input and we hope that the government is going to be more active in soliciting input and experimenting ideas Edwin Tong, some supportive words there, I wanted to ask you about something else that came up in the press conference yesterday, I mean, I think you have a lot of concern that only two of these reclamation sites can actually provide housing, and that's what on people's minds at the moment, I mean that, I'm sure if you have a public opinion poll, would you support reclamation to solve Hong Kong's housing shortage, you'd probably get a higher vote in favour, but these six sites don't really help that much ... well apart from these six sites, and first look at the five sites ok the five sites, although only two, at the moment, seems to be favourable for housing, the other sites can be used for other activities which are required by Hong Kong, and by putting these sites to these facilities other areas in the urban areas can be freed up yes, I heard that argument, but I don't understand it, I mean how you say Sunny Bay is going to be a tourist area, what area are you going to free up for residential development, are you suggesting you would have put the tourist facilities in Tsim Sha Tsui otherwise or something ... No, for instance, for Siu Ho Wan (小蠔灣) the logistics park, things like that if we do the logistics park, then we need to find some place for it anyway so, if we look at the whole Hong Kong as a whole may I also come back to Paul's point, about reclamation being the last resort of the six prongs we do see it differently, because the six prongs will complement each other um... for population, from census department in the next thirty years we are seeing 1.37 million increase in population although what the skeptics will say that the figures are always wrong but that is the main point it's difficult to forecast population but reclamation or a land reserve, can actually address this problem it address the problem because if there is a fluctuation in the development scale and so on, we do have a new land for the other [modes] these are using existing land, from one use to the other reclamation actually gives us new land to address the problem of fluctuation in the economy and things like that I don't disagree that we need a pipeline, that we need a strategic plan that looks far ahead in the future what the population is going be what does it mean to have a quality of life in Hong Kong with larger living spaces, and what we need to supply land and development for our economic development of course we need that and we need to make sure that we identify where that is gonna come from that land for these development rights because a lot of it is going to be existing land that could be developed that is currently use for factories, that we could use it for other purposes, that is currently used four open storage in the New Territories, and we can use it for other purposes so, how you supply again the demand that you see in the long-term, we have to make a point that if you got a supply, you gotta make sure you you deal with the existing issues of inefficient land uses and not go for your cheapest and easiest, which is to get a bunch of engineers to build a seawall and and make new land where it is owned by nobody and therefore you can easily go ahead and now you make even more easier for you, by avoiding all the areas where people have objections and when the environmentalists have objections Isn't that a good idea, to avoid those areas? ... those areas where nobody makes comments on it so that seems to be the strategy where we say you should come up with a strategic plan for Hong Kong ... that's not true that we are avoiding the eco-shoreline, we are avoiding the sensitive shorelines and things like that one point I think that I wish also to make is that reclamation is a very long process, if you don't start to plan about it now, and we wait until all of the five options hit the wall then we're stuck, I mean that it has to go together with the other five options ... what sort of timetable if we started reclamation next year on these sites what sort of timetable would we be looking at? actually, we are not looking at reclaiming the first piece of land tomorrow, or next year the next stage is after the public engagement stage 2 we're going to try to get funds for detailed studies for all these five sites and also the artificial islands, we have tried to propose in the central waters so the next stage is to get money for detailed studies, including environmental impact assessment, and so and so forth if everything went according to plan what would be the earliest that one of these sites could be reclaimed ... how long does it take? 10 years,15 years? ... normally it takes about ten years to have the first piece of land but we are looking at trying to streamline the procedures this is one thing we are also looking at in the next stage and we are looking at maybe, if everything goes smoothly if we have the support maybe 2019 or 2020 to have the first piece of land ok, well you mentioned the floating islands, we'll get to that later in the programme after the news at 9 O'clock that's another interesting, controversial idea, and also the rock caverns as well, perhaps we can touch on you are listening to BackChat this morning, do join in, you can email [email protected], or call us on 23388266, and we had an email message from Jason who says cancel Zhuhai Bridge and we don't have the capacity in the construction industry for reclamation, we don't have the capacity for existing commitments, we need to cancel the Zhuhai Bridge, it has its own problems, it also pushes up building costs for the rest of the economy, for example schools the school fees go up, the residences flat prices are up, hospital fees and so on Kowloon Cultural District and so on, we need to rezone old industrial and different sites, says Jason, that's an issue we could return to as well, Jason adds PS, Disneyland would be a great sport for a new town, there is that huge area, I keep mentioning it, that huge area next to it as well, which is completely unused at the moment anyway, we will get back to the topic in about three minutes time after the news before that, here's the latest weather information from the Observatory, cloudy today with some mist this morning and at night, couple of light rain patches at first, sunny intervals during the day, the maximum temperature about 24 degrees moderate to fresh easterly winds becoming moderate south easterlies later, the outlook is for sunny periods tomorrow and there will be showers on Sunday, the readings at the moment at the Observatory 19 Celsius, humidity at 91% welcome back, this is BackChat on a Friday morning, we're talking about the governments second stage proposals on reclamation outside the harbour, we have with us Paul Zimmerman District Councillor and Convener of Designing Hong Kong, Samantha Lee Senior Conservation Officer Marine at WWF Hong Kong and Edwin Tong, who's the head of Civil Engineering Office, Civil Engineering and Development Department to introduce this second stage of consultation, your co-host today is Danny Gititngs my name is Hugh Chiverton, ok some comments from listeners, [email protected] is our email address and they're back on the topic of population as well, which is kind of the starting point for all this Jason says it's true the Hong Kong government can't predict population but the US Government has predicted Hong Kong population and it's declining Jason if you've got time, could you point us towards that, I haven't see that that's an interesting uh ... claim Housing Estate Brett says where do they all come from, a million something more people for Hong Kong did I hear, that's the route problem, and I mean problem, the full meaning of the P word here Housing Estate Brett also says now we have something like he says 250 000 unoccupied properties in the territory every time I go out, the mini bus I ride passes public rental housing space with empty units also seen a empty patches of land left fallow for years also don't see that many homeless people out there, what do we need more reclamation for says Housing Estate Brett Samantha Lee, do you do you accept the need for more land for housing given the population estimates which are our best guess At the moment I would accept it , more land for housing, because we also, well recently a lot of news saying that there are not enough flats for us to buy, and certainly I think in Hong Kong we need more land for housing, but of course and when we look for new land we point [ out that ] we also need to look at the redevelopment zones, or some areas that not really effectively used OK, Craig in an email says, can we now confirm the previous plan to reclaim against a natural shoreline in Tung Chung Bay is now off the government's crazy list and with it the MTR extension to Tung Chung West also Sunny Bay would be a great place to live with noise from the aircraft no worse than Park Island says Craig uh... what about the development in Tung Chung, that was something that was touched on by the in the policy address wasn't it? there was a discussion of that, is this included in the reclamation or is that, anyone know? well, Hugh, the Tung Chung reclamation project is ongoing, is something else because it is already in the consultation stage, about the project itself to the best of my knowledge, it deep avoid any sensitive shoreline in that area for Tung Chung, they are going to reclaim two pieces of land and one is Tung Chung East, which is 110 hectares, and to the west of Tung Chung is 175 hectares and ok, so and that's not included in this study ... not included because it was planned before, and for this Tung Chung development project, it's now under the environmental assessment process, so the government they are hiring consultants to conduct some research, to see how to conduct some environmental assessment, so this is a study stage at the moment ... ok Craig, I hope that clears it up that's something else, and that's going ahead let's talk about the artificial islands in Central Waters which we haven't really touched on so far, this is further down the road, I'm looking at the government publication, they illustrate it with a picture of Sentosa they don't label it, it must be Sentosa Island in Singapore suggesting that Hong Kong should have its own equivalent of Sentosa, and we're talking about huge area here, we're talking about the equivalent of 50-60 West Kowloon Districts Edwin Tong, you realise that for artificial this huge artificial island, there are much broader implications aren't there, that must be a very long term project ... I must make a clarification here the area that's shown in the project digest is only the study area we are talking about we are going to study that area ... you are not necessarily suggesting it's going to be that big what you are talking about basically all the area between Lamma and Cheung Chau would disappear on what you have put on the project this is only the study area, where we can put artificial islands the reason why we choose the Central Waters, we have looked at three waters, the Eastern Waters we have a large area there, but those areas are have a lot of ecological sensitive shorelines and they are much deeper than the Central Waters, they are more than 20 metres deep so it's not good for reclamation and also if we put artificial islands there, we cannot effectively connect to the urban area, because it's a long way from the urban area, from the Eastern Waters actually Eastern Waters, we preserve it as a backyard of Hong Kong, a back garden of Hong Kong, and so on and so forth for the Western Waters, that is between the northern Lantau and the airport that area, there's already a lot of projects going on and this Chinese White Dolphin is over there so we don't think that is a good area for large piece of reclamation in the centre of the water, but for Central Waters we do see that there is the opportunity to put artificial islands there, and link it up with the central urban district which is quite close to Lantau, Tsing Ma Bridge, Kowloon area, and even to the western part of Hong Kong link it up to Central district, you'd have to basically run a road across the harbour, I remember the early plans for Chep Lap Kok this was drawn in for a late stage wasn't it? you have a road coming out from Western Hong Kong island straight across the harbour, wouldn't you? that is one of the things that we have to look into, whether it is feasible and how much it costs and how we'd best to link up the Central Islands or to create artificial islands, the best thing about artificial islands is you may be able to give a big piece of land to the people of Hong Kong not like near shore reclamation the best we can do you in Lung Kwu Tan (龍鼓灘) is only 200-300 hectares but for artificial islands, if you do it properly, we may get we're talking about 1400 to 2400 hectares of land Paul Zimmerman, how about this idea, it would solve all our problems right? we don't have to worry about the dolphins and the reclamation in those areas well those plans are really old, after the Second World War, Hong Kong was looking ... it's been going on a long time hasn't it it's doesn't mean we can't do it right ... not necessarily you can't do it but when we looked at moving Kai Tak, the original plan was to move it in those Central Waters when we had plans for new container terminals these were also exactly those areas ... this suggests that this is a very ... this is an old plan to this is an [unclear] area, that's why it's been looked at so many times well they looked at it because there are some areas between Hei Ling Chau 喜靈洲 and Peng Chau 坪洲 where the water is not deep and north of Sunshine Island (晨曦島) where the water is not very deep, so this very rough indication that we see in this consultation is not really fair uh... if you look at the nautical charts that are available from the Marine Department you can see the fairways are, you can what the water depths are and you can see realistically where you could create islands and they would be most likely be attached to the existing islands, and the biggest impact would be, you know, how you connect them to existing road infrastructure if you built them close to Lantau, you could connect them to the Lantau expressway and to the rail lines there if you get them closer to Hong Kong island ... hang on the expressway and the rail line are on the other side of Lantau you have to punch through the same way you already have a tunnel between Discovery Bay and the north side, you need to punch through but you gotta find a way to do that, and if you connect with Hong Kong island, you are going to get problems with reclamation around Kennedy Town where you are basically within Victoria Harbour, where reclamation is excluded as an option, so you know, I'm going add the problem with these artificial islands again, is you know there are the ones that you can somehow see that there's a plan Ma Liu Shui 馬料水 you can see a plan for building a new town you can see a plan for a logistics centers may be on Lantau or close to the airport, you can see a good argument for it, the artificial islands in the middle of the water what's the plan? you know what exactly are we going to need these for? you don't think it's going to happen? it's been around for a long time, and basically it's a plan nothing going to happen ... you've got to clearly define what you need that land for and why we're going need it and then decide whether you're going to be willing to go for that expense I can't see that's going to happen for a very long time, unless there is a very clear, clearly stated amount, you say you're going build a big new town and we think it is is a great area to do it for this and this reason, but I haven't seen an argument ... Edwin Tong, we're talking very long term, aren't we here? yes, very long term ... 20-30 years? 20 years maybe but, this actually was one of the views given by some of the respondents in the stage one public engagement, they say other than thinking about, you know 20 hectare here, 30 hectare there why don't you think of some big artificial island in Central Waters, it's one of the views given by the public ... well, a Mainland Chinese engineer Samantha Lee, what do you think of the idea? for this artificial island, I really suggest the government to take a precautionary approach, because it sounds great it may provide a big piece of land, but first thing is that you need to check if that a piece of land will block the current and then second, is when you are develop a piece of land, you also need to think of the supporting facilities like, [was mentioned] before, you may need to be bridges, tunnels and other things and it may also occupy the marine habitat and then the third thing is that, we all know that we are really happy that trawling is banned in in Hong Kong waters, and according to what Edwin just said, it may take twenty to thirty years time, and then after twenty to thirty years, we may have much more fishing resources, because the sea is recovering, and then at that time, this piece of land, maybe we have some fish living there so the government also need to do some projection of or do some study, because maybe at that time, maybe there would be a lot of fishery resources, how are you going to deal with that and then, also this big piece of land is for fisherman, they always go fishing there, and we cannot neglect their rights, because they are the sea user, if you build a big piece of land, this means that the fisherman, they do not have enough, they will have less space to do the fishing and these we all need to take into account and consideration Edwin Tong, this idea's been around for a long time, you must have some preliminary ideas would we be more likely to have one big island or succession of small islands would it all be for residential purposes, or for mixed use, I mean what when you've talked about this, what sort of preliminary ideas have you had well there are different mixtures of ideas, and you talked about all of them there's a been a suggestion of a very big island south of Cheung Chau that was actually one of the twenty five sites illustrated in the stage one, but there are also other ideas of linking different islands by bridges or tunnels ... you mean existing islands, or new artificial islands here? new and existing together, that's one idea as well, and I must say that if everything goes alright, and there is big support for these, if we go ahead possibly, we can do it in less than fifteen years Macau, how long did it take in Macau, and that's changed the face of Macau hasn't it? with the reclamation there ... joined two island together essentially ... yes OK, an email from Glen, sorry a message on our Facebook page from Glen going back to Lung Kwu Tan 龍鼓灘 um... this is right on the west side Glen says Lung Kwu Tan (龍鼓灘) would need a massive amount of transport infrastructure added to avoid another Tin Shui Wai, a failed town, government and other contractors for the Hong Kong-Zhuhai Bridge, have done a great job destroying the ecological value of the area says Glen what were you thinking of in Lung Kwu Tan (龍鼓灘), was that housing, or was that more kind of um... stuff we don't want anywhere else Lung Kwu Tan (龍鼓灘) is actually also suitable for housing, at least part of it, looking at the locations and looking at the size of the reclamation there, there's also opportunity for educational usage and facilities like that and for infrastructure is one of the things that we have to look into obviously, because there's only one road going to Lung Kwu Tan at the moment but the beauty of all the three western selected sites, is we've already invested in a lot of infrastructure in those areas compared to other sites, so it's not too big a problem to upgrade the infrastructure and access to these areas now you made a mistake, well not you personally, the government made a mistake on the Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai Bridge, you didn't conduct a thorough enough environmental impact assessment study and the court initially found against the government, I know it was overturned on appeal, but found against the government, and as a result that project was delayed, and the government says that the costs have risen as a result, although that is disputed, presumably you're going to be very careful with of these different plans, and that you do conduct every possible impact assessment ... absolutely ... I think one more thing is, right now we know that Western Water is really congested we have the [unclear] bridge, we have the Hong Kong - Zhuhai Bridge, maybe in the future, maybe we'll have third run way and Tung Chung, and new town development, I think the government, what they need to do is to calculate the carrying capacity, because we have so many things in the western waters, what is the caring capacity, what would be the impact into the marine environment because in the last few years we have rampant development, and then we could also see that the dolphin numbers they are dropping, so I think if you just build more things in the Western Waters to do better facilitation for us we also need to think of the carrying capacity has it already reached the maximum, will it cause further stress, and stress to the marine life there, I think the government also needs to study about this Samantha, you can rest assured, because we are going to look after this by doing some cumulative impact assessment in this area on all these ecology concerns and it's important also to look at the areas as a whole you know we've been adding piecemeal every time there's a plan coming up a little bit of reclamation here, a little reclamation there, another bridge, another tunnel, and we keep adding them up, but there's a result we have a lot of parallel roads parallel fly overs, and we're taking far more land than if we planned the area as a whole, we take a long-term approach and then work backwards, it seems they afraid, because of push-back from environmental groups and you only show a little cart, and then another little cart push-back from environmental groups this is exactly what you do right? ... the point is that it challenges the government to come and, we say don't come back with your piecemeal little things show a little cart ... so if they show a big one you'll say it's far too big, and look at population studies, you say we're not going to need that the government can't win either way the government will have to come, the area here where we are very concerned about this piecemeal approach, the impact on the environment to government has to come up with an overall plan showing all the infrastructure combined and not piecemeal I echo Paul, in Hong Kong we have to have a more forward looking solution which is to conduct marine spatial planning this planning, for the terrestrial, we have a lot of planning for different land use for the sea it is like a mass and echoing what Paul said it's like a piecemeal so the Hong Kong government also need to think about conducting a spatial planning to see which piece of sea is for protection which piece of sea has a lower ecological value for the development, and for this Canada and also the UK they have been quite successful in planning how we're going to use the sea in order to reduce the conflict between conservation, development, and then can also achieve the social, environmental and then economic objectives one last email from JR perhaps Mr Tong if you'd like to address this, JR says two birds with one stone, why not remove some of the container terminals and reclaim that for housing and so on, it would remove one of the major sources of air pollution ships and container lorries while also creating a giant bit of land Well, I think the container terminals is one of the major economic movers in Hong Kong at the moment, so this is one suggestion I think everyone can debate about his ... the south of Tsing Yi reclamation which is on the plan here, specifically to create more land for container terminals and shipping operations so I think the government is on the complete opposite of this plan OK, last word going to Brett if I can get the stupid computer to work, he says, I say again our container port will eventually go away, probably before twenty years from now redevelop says Brett echoing that from separate emails from JR, well thank you very much to our guests this morning to Ediwn Tong, thank you Mr Tong, Head of the of the Civil Engineering and Development Department, to Samantha Lee Senior Conservation Officer Marine at WWF Hong Kong, and to Paul Zimmerman District Councillor and Convener of Designing