The Death of a Bauhinia: The Landing Point of China’s Greater Bay Area Tentacles in Hong Kong, East Lantau Metropolis — Origins, Crisis and Future
Not long after the “suspension” of the work in the extradition law, instead of “withdrawal,” which the government could bring the amendment into the legislative council to pass again with only 12 days of notice. Under the chaos and Hongkonger’s protesting with their rage on the streets, the government tried to push the “Lantau Tomorrow Vision.”
Lantau Tomorrow Vision, in its name, means a vision for future development. The core of the vision is an artificial island, called the East Lantau Metropolis, in the middle of Kau Yi Chau and Ping Chau. The vision is extremely controversial because of its high price and the long time that it is needed to build, meaning it could be an endless financial disaster or disaster in all aspect for both Hongkongers and the government of Hong Kong. The vision needs a shocking one trillion of Hong Kong dollars as its construction fee (roughly 128 billion USD), only just to start the basis, which is reclaiming the sea for the East Lantau Metropolis, excluding any additional cost such as infrastructure and construction of housing.
For those who had no idea what is one trillion Hong Kong dollars means, think about it. Hong Kong has only managed to fill up their reserve to this level at 2018, after 21 years of the handover, despite the health of the Hong Kong economy and the fact that the Hong Kong government has been famous for managing its books well.
And yet, we are being told to spend all the money that we had saved from our ancestor to a vision that we could never bring it to life? With the sea level rise, and the government of Hong Kong is becoming a pawn of the central government increasingly, is it the plan for Hongkongers?
One trillion dollars may sound like an absurd figure for anyone, but this is exactly how much the Hong Kong government reserves totaled and surpassed starting in 2018. This absurd amount of money that has been stored in the reserve is the result of government financial policy to spend on a balanced budget, which is required on the Basic Law Article 107.
The government cited that this one trillion dollars strategic infrastructure would boost Hong Kong’s development and building a promising future is incredibly similar to the development of the Airport Core Development Program that was built with a huge 2000 billion dollar price tag. The Airport Core Development Program, which became the Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) in Chek Lap Kok today, commonly known as “The Rose Garden” project, was built by the Colonial government in 1997.
The project was being built not only to build a better airport, is to assure Hongkonger’s confidence in the handover in 1997, where the Hongkonger’s confidence to China was hitting rock bottom after the Tiananmen Square Protest 1989. The new airport was built on newly reclaimed land on Chek Lap Kok Island. The project, on a 22-years standpoint, is absolutely a success. According to Skytrax, a famous airline and airport review had placed the HKIA as one of a top tier airport of its kind.
Yet, does the Lantau Tomorrow Vision and the East Lantau Metropolis would resemble as one of the prides of Hong Kong as the HKIA?
The government claimed that East Lantau Metropolis could bring a massive piece of land to build housing for Hongkongers that are desperate for housing because of the ever-rising housing price. A strong boost into the future quality of life and the economy of Hong Kong. They also stated that using reclamation to build more land is a usual way, which the cited is the most effective way of doing so.
When the trillion dollar plan was announced, Hongkongers did not associate the benefits of the plan. They associate the high cost of the project is a threat to government expenditure and stability immediately, same as when the new airport was announced.
30 years have passed since the Airport Core Project was announced in 1989, the environment, the situation and the needs of people had already changed. The most drastic change I would like to point is our decaying environment associated with our rapid development, the most fearful concern, therefore, in my opinion, is the environmental concerns–more precisely, is the sea level rise and the sixth extinction.
The government claims that they would develop the vision with climate change in mind, stated that they would follow the guidelines of the Ports Work Design Manual, published by the Civil Engineering Development Department (CEDD) that had standards and guidelines based on the prediction that was set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2014. They said they would build a stronger a higher seawall, which they opt to have a 1.3 meters seawall above sea level.
However, this had not taken effect on the newest estimates of the sea level rise, with humans carbon emission to the highest point of history in 2019, scientists had given a set of more stressful and gloomy numbers of sea level rise. Even the IPCC admits that their standard in 2014 is outdated and too conservative as soon it was published.
Moreover, the CEDD had measured the sea level on Kau Yi Chau during one of the strongest typhoons — Typhoon Mangkyut — in history, has a staggering record high 10 meters of sea wave slamming into the island. The 1.3 meters seawall that was planned to be reclaimed, sadly would just be breach during the typhoon season in last year’s summer.
The fact that current estimates that the seawall will not even withstand the current typhoon during summer is a horrifying fact for the ones who will be living on the East Lantau Metropolis and the taxpayers who are paying for the construction and the maintenance cost. Until this day, the government had yet to provide any information for future expenditure after the one trillion reclamation cost.
The fact that the unmeasurable maintenance cost of the one trillion projects has not been familiar with the Hongkongers, especially the ones who are living at Sub-dividedflats, which are flats that were separated divided using wooden boards who are in need for housing assistance to improve quality of life. People consider this as modern day slums since the living conditions are unbearable, for instance, the average flat size is bearly over 130 sqft, with an average of 2.3 people are living inside each flat, making living space per person of 49.6 sqft, according to government data.
Moreover, most of them needed to share a restroom and kitchen with other neighbors, and most of them don’t even have any air conditioning or windows. Yet, whoppingly 209 thousand people were living there, according to 2016 data, where the price of housing since then had increased 100%, based on the Centa-City Leading Index.
The unbearable condition could also be attributed to the high rent, where the average residents spend 36% of their expenditures on to their rent. These people are considered as the more fortunate ones, the less fortunate ones are living what’s called “cage homes,” as shown as the picture below. In a city like Hong Kong, it is hard to imagine that people are having these living conditions.
However, we left out a huge part of Hong Kong, in fact, 75% of the total land mass has been untouched as according to the data from the Hong Kong Planning Department, only 1/4 of the land had been developed. Besides the part that we can’t touch, especially the 38% of the land that is dedicated to the country parks and marine parks to preserve biodiversity and in remote rough terrains which is hard to develop, we still have around 36% of land could use.
That 36% is the ridiculous part of Hong Kong, these lands mostly are the farmlands, brownfield, and clubs for the rich. Since the farming industry depression at the 1980s, with the economic structure changing to the third industry and cheap agriculture products from China are pouring into Hong Kong at cheap price. A lot of farmlands were abandoned and later sold to the real estate developers. Some of the farmlands were turned into brownfields by the real estate developers, to perform works such as junkyards, which pollutes the environment.
So, why don’t develop or maybe simply manage these lands with laws and regulations? The lands that are holding by the rich are pushing the poverty gap, the lack of action from the government, reassembles what the Hong Kong government has been doing in the past years, not listening to its people.
Especially, when the government has the law and righteousness on its side. According to the Hong Kong Law Cap. 124 — Lands Resumption Ordinance, the government has the right to retrieve the land back for any “public purpose.” In fact, new towns developed during the 60–80s including Sha Tin and Tuen Mun were mainly developed with the help of this ordinance.
Yet, the main reason why the situation is so bad is because of the land and housing policy of the government had encouraged high land price from producing insufficient land and housing supply, learned from the lessons on the Asia Financial Crisis in 1997. Since the 1997 Asia Financial Crisis, the housing price had never reached back the level at 1997 until 2012, based on the Centa-City Leading Index.
The negative equity crisis, driven by the decrease in value of housing by as much as 70%, comes along with the depression. People also associated with the government policy commonly called “85000 policy,” which the policy by setting the public housing goal to 85000 units/year, aims to help Hongkongers, who are suffering in the high housing price in 1997, to get a public housing that is affordable. Since there is 85000 more flat every year that are available in the market, it strikes down the demand immediately. It has also been seen as a huge driving force of the plummet of the housing market.
This is why the government feared to interfere in the housing market and allow the craziness of ever-increasing rent, housing price on every individual and business. During 2002 to 2012, there is no regular construction of Public Rental Housing, the Homeowner scheme during the period was put on indefinite hold until 2012. The land sale mode was changed from an open auction to a system called “Land Application List System,” which helped create a lower supply. This created a 10-year window to allow the housing price to rise, which the price did rose. However, the lack of long-term planning had caused the government had nothing to stop the market from going crazy.
Today, despite the government’s work, the supply has yet to meet demand. This is why Hong Kong housing is complex and bad. Currently, it tilts to in favor of the rich more than the poor. However, the worse part has yet to come. The government announced the strategic plan named as “Hong Kong 2030+: Towards a Planning Vision and Strategy Transcending 2030,” this is where the “Lantau Tomorrow Vision” has been first mentioned — the nightmares start.
The “Hong Kong 2030+” did recognize the issues that the current housing market has, however it was reluctant to mention that we could develop the brownfields which are better connected with existing infrastructures ready to solve the housing problems, even after the government had rebuilt public housing and determine to cool down the housing market. It was more reluctant to mention that there is a lot of clubs that could only be accessible by rich club members in prime city centers, including the Cricket Club and the Fanling Golf Course. These clubs use short term rent with holding up a total amount of 408 hectares of land, which almost all of them are easy to access.
The only reason that one could relate is with the reluctance stance of the government to solve the problem, is with the close relationship between Hong Kong politicians and Hong Kong Business Elites. In fact, Ex-chief Executive Donald Tsang was found guilty of corruption and colluding with real estate developer.
More recently, just months after the High-Speed Rail that opened in September 2018. There have been rumors for the second high-speed rail from China.
These rumors have been clearer and clearer every day as the Central Government wanted a second, faster rail link from the planning East Lantau Metropolis. Just a few days ago, news agencies found there is a solid plan from Guangzhou for a second highspeed rail link planning to link the planning metropolis. This means that if the plan succeeds, Hong Kong taxpayers will not only pay for the money for a sinking hole. They would also provide the capital for the lucrative contract for China’s state-controlled companies which are directly controlled by the Central government, saving them from bankruptcy as China’s economy is facing a direct threat from the trade wars.
The most horrifying is not a closer connection to China with Hong Kong, the most horrifying is that there would be no such thing as Hong Kong at all. Another SAR, Macau has been listing out how it would collaborate with the Great Bay Area Initiative by removing barriers, which the some had suspected that the Hong Kong government have been doing the amendment of extradition law because of this.
Building the East Lantau Metropolis? Now you see why it is a self-suicide.
#Goodluckhongkong #香港加油
