A Greenpeace/PORI poll finds that only 6% of Hongkongers support development of both the Lantau mega-reclamation and the Northern Metropolis vision-hub-zone-project at the same time. PORI is at the trustworthy end of the Hong Kong opinion-polls spectrum.
The Lantau plan – pushed hard by Carrie Lam – has always had a faint not-going-to-happen feel about it. The idea of spending over half a trillion bucks on something we already have (land, in the New Territories) was absurd. The justification was that the underutilized space in the NT was too something-administratively-blahblah-complex to be used. But after 1C2S gave way to Beijing-led NatSec City, the insurmountable barriers to unlocking NT land mysteriously vanished, and we suddenly had space to house an extra million people up there.
Officials insist that, even though the population is declining, the Lantau project should still proceed. Obviously, engineering/construction/other interests, many of them Mainland companies, would be upset to forego half a trillion bucks in prospective contracts. But there are surely less absurd ways to blow such a huge stock of wealth (like building half a dozen more bridges to Zhuhai, or putting HK$100,000 on everyone’s Octopus card).
Whatever happens, it is out of local officials’ hands – let alone anything to do with public opinion. Which brings us to the most surprising aspect of the opinion poll: in an environment where so much of civil society has disappeared, Greenpeace and PORI still exist.
Don’t forget that there’s also a still unused hospital campus up there that was built in the Emergency Times of Covid and then abandoned, presumably? Like, the great thing about authoritarian government is that anyone with the right lever of power can get something done, it just doesn’t guarantee it’s the right thing, or that it is going to be seen through.
“Mehr bumsen in Beton “ as we used to say in Zurich.
Ve vill cover everyting!!!!!
https://www.deepl.com/translator-mobile
@Donkey – not quite abandoned: https://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking-news/section/4/202727/Four-guards-hospitalized-over-golf-cart-crash-in-Lok-Ma-Chau-makeshift-hospital
Presumably they were chasing Austin Powers, or whatever it is authoritarian regime’s Bond villain employees do with golf carts.
There has been no published study of the influence on tidal flows through the Lamma Channel, caused by enormous reclamation in the Central Waters.
The same happened when the West Kowloon reclamation was originally proposed: no published hydrographic survey. An unpublished survey indicated that tidal flow around Shun Tak Centre would increase by 2 knots and that a Typhoon surge in Victoria Harbour would flood Oil Street and up to Kings Road and in central Central up to Queens Road.
The tidal channeling of the Lamma Channel by reclamation on the Central Waters would inevitably increase tidal flows and lead to flooding on the reclamation and erosion on Lamma.
But it looks so nice in the video…………………
https://www.centralwaters.hk/en/video/
“Mehr bumsen in Beton “.
Now whose little catchphrase was that?
Oh yes! Now I remember.