The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Greenbelt building is just an old bottle of wine

2022-08-08T05:55:22.963Z


The Chief Executive, Mr. Lee Ka-chiu, met with the media after his visit to Sham Shui Po District earlier. He mentioned that the main focus of the current-term government is to increase the supply of land from existing land sources. One of the main considerations is the green belt, and he hopes that relevant discussions will be conducted at this stage.


The Chief Executive, Mr. Lee Ka-chiu, met the media after his visit to Sham Shui Po District earlier. He mentioned that the main focus of the current-term government is to increase the supply of land from existing land sources. One of the main considerations is the green belt, and he hopes that relevant discussions at this stage can focus on this "" "Primary" land supply option.

By integrating the digital planning information provided by the Town Planning Board, as of July 22 this year, about 16,779 hectares of land in Hong Kong have been designated as green zones on statutory plans, an increase of nearly 10% compared to the 15,273 hectares at the end of 2013.

Many voices in the community believe that if such green belts are converted to residential use, the shortage of housing supply can be effectively filled. For example, former Director of Planning Ling Jiaqin said that green belts are generally close to roads, and public facilities such as water, transportation and electricity are relatively close to each other. perfect, and therefore worthy of priority development.


However, there has always been a precedent for the rezoning of such green belts, which in itself is enough to show that this matter is not a new issue worthy of special attention.

In fact, as early as the era of Donald Tsang, in his 2011 Policy Address, he stated that he would "review the 'green belts' in the New Territories that have no vegetation, waste or already formed, and repurpose land that has lost its original function for housing development." This commences the first phase of the review exercise.

Under the Leung Chun-ying government, the next stage of green belt inspections will be extended from 2013 onwards to areas on the fringes of built-up areas, with relatively low buffering and ecological values.

As for Carrie Lam's last "Policy Address" in 2021, she also announced that the third round of review will "focus on sites with higher slopes and farther from the built-up areas".

It can be seen that the use of green belts to build houses is a long-standing policy.

In the 2018 "Land Debate", rezoning green belts was not listed as one of the consultation options, also because it is not a new potential source of land supply.

Before that, in 2015, the authorities planned to rezon a number of green areas in Tai Po District into residential land. Yau Jiabao, a student of the Education University of Hong Kong, filed a judicial review of the decisions of the Town Planning Board and the Chief Executive in Council. Judge Ouyang Guiru of the Court of First Instance of the High Court sentenced the plaintiff to lose the case, reflecting that the greenbelt building has even resisted the challenge of civil judicial review.

The strange thing is that recently, some members of political parties and even senior officials of the Hong Kong government have always promoted it as an option that has not been considered in the past. ...

For details, please read the 329th issue of "Hong Kong 01" e-Weekly Newsletter (August 8, 2022) "

Building houses in green areas is just an old bottle of old wine

"

Source: hk1

All news articles on 2022-08-08

You may like

Life/Entertain 2024-02-19T07:11:33.610Z

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-28T06:04:53.137Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.