Central Reclamation ¡V No Proper Public Consultation

The following facts should conclusively settle the dispute raised by the attack by Michael Suen Ming-Yuen, Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands (¡§Done and dusted down to the last letter of the law¡¨ ¡V S.C.M.P. 9.1.2007) on the veracity of the article of Christine Loh Kung-Wai (¡§An overriding public need¡¨ ¡V (S.C.M.P. 4.1.2007).

In 1997, overcoming the Government's objections, our Society secured the enactment of the Protection of the Harbour Ordinance (¡§the Ordinance¡¨) to protect the harbour against excessive reclamation by legally constituting the harbour ¡¥a special public asset and a natural heritage of Hong Kong people'.

Despite the Ordinance and the objections of our Society, the Government still proceeded with the Central Reclamation Phase III (¡§CRIII¡¨) giving to the public and the Town Planning Board (¡§the Board¡¨) the wrong legal interpretation of the Ordinance that ¡¥public benefit' was sufficient to justify reclamation.

CRIII provides for large pieces of land to be sold for office and commercial development and the Government justified this to the Legislative Council that the sale of the reclaimed land could raise very substantial revenue.

The Government then held extensive public consultations, but on the wrong basis. The public were mis-informed as to what the law was and what they could object to. Therefore the public consultations were fundamentally flawed because the public were mis-informed about their legal rights to challenge the Government's plans.

Our Society eventually took the dispute over the interpretation of the Ordinance to court. The Court of Final Appeal (¡§CFA¡¨) ruled against the Government's interpretation and prescribed that reclamation can only be justified by ¡¥an overriding public need'. The CFA judgment obviously excluded the sale of reclaimed land for revenue as a justification.

The logical, fair and honourable reaction to the CFA judgment would have been for the Government to consult the public once again and to refer the CRIII plan back to the Board for re-consideration, both based upon the correct legal interpretation. This the Government has up to now refused to do.

Therefore the Government's proposal to sell the reclaimed land for massive property development attracting more people and traffic to Central and worsening the air pollution has never been properly considered by the public nor by the Board.

Without such massive development, the new surface highway known as P2 may not be needed and at least the Clock Tower may not need to be demolished to make way for it. All of Star Ferry, Queen's Pier, Edinburgh Place and the City Hall could have been preserved in one complex as Hong Kong's heritage. The public has been denied such an opportunity.

Therefore Ms. Loh was right to write that neither the public nor the Board had ever been given the opportunity to consider CRIII on a proper basis and it remains doubtful whether CRIII and the demolition of the Star Ferry (including the Clock Tower) and Queen's Pier can be justified in accordance with the CFA judgment.

The conclusion that the Government has not acted properly over this matter is beyond dispute.

Yours sincerely,

Winston K.S. Chu,

Adviser,

Society for Protection of the Harbour