Budget Speech

Increasing Land Supply

31.      To meet the demand for public and private housing sites, we will continue with our work on land use planning and urban design. We also need to explore new ways to increase the supply of land. Two possible ways are reclamation on an appropriate scale outside Victoria Harbour and rock cavern development. I will allocate about
$300 million to the Development Bureau to initiate public discussion about the feasibility of these new options by carrying out relevant studies and public engagement exercises in the next few years. We will consider a number of factors, including engineering feasibility, cost-effectiveness and public acceptability, before deciding how to put the ideas into action.

32.      On reclamation, we will first review those locations outside Victoria Harbour which were previously considered for this purpose. At the same time, we will conduct a comprehensive site search to identify other suitable locations.

33.      On enhancing the use of rock caverns, the Civil Engineering and Development Department will complete a study shortly. According to the study findings, the geology of Hong Kong is extremely suitable for developing rock caverns to provide usable underground space. We will consider formulating long-term strategic planning for reserving potential sites for cavern development. We will also explore the feasibility of relocating such government facilities as sewage treatment works and service reservoirs to rock caverns in order to release land for housing and other uses. Further planning and engineering studies will commence in due course.

Content | Next Page