Press Release – 27 September 2013Country Parks: Three kisses of death today
Despite the promise in 2010 to protect against development in fifty four enclaves, the Town Planning Board has today gazetted statutory plans under section 5 of the Town Planning Ordinance for Hoi Ha (S/NE-HH/1), Pak Lap (S/SK-PL/1) and So Lo Pun (S/NE-SLP/1).
The zoning for the first three enclaves allow the construction of large numbers of Small (New Territories Exempted) Houses deep inside the Sai Kung and Plover Cove Country Parks. Assuming similar ratios for all enclaves, Designing Hong Kong estimates that the East and West Sai Kung Country Parks will see 3,000 and the Plover Cove Country Park around 4,000 new Small Houses.
Paul Zimmerman, CEO of Designing Hong Kong:
“The Government failed its promise to diligently consider incorporating the enclaves under Country Park protection. There has been no environmental, traffic or visual impact assessment of the cumulative impacts on country parks of small house developments in the enclaves.”
“The cancer of small house villages seen throughout the New Territories will now spread to the country parks. The environment will rapidly deteriorate with demands for roads and transport, and the chaos of effluent drainage, sewage percolation, and unauthorized occupation of land for construction, slope stabilisation, and parking.”
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