Hong Kong’s Town Planning Board has approved the zoning for the 600-hectare (1,482-acre) San Tin Technopole infrastructural project near the border with mainland China, designed to attract top tech firms to the city.
The board earlier received strong resistance during a two-month public consultation that began in March, with as many as 10 environmental groups slamming authorities for a “flawed” environment impact assessment report.
The board said on Friday most members at the meeting, which ran for several hours, supported the development of innovation and technology (I&T) industries in the area, but were divided on the need to reclaim fish ponds.
“Given the geographic constraints of being surrounded by mountains on multiple sides and the need for a sufficiently large scale to achieve clustering effects, it is necessary to fill fish ponds to provide land for I&T uses in a reasonable manner,” a spokesman said.
It also noted that the environmental impact assessment report was approved by the director of environmental protection and authorities had to fulfil certain conditions to balance development and conservation.
Conditions laid out in the report included requiring the Civil Engineering and Development Department to submit a “habitat creation and management plan” no less than nine months before 90 hectares of fish ponds would start to be filled in.
The plan would outline compensation measures, a future management strategy and monitoring parameters.
A detailed design for wildlife corridors, a proposal to enhance the nearby wetland and plans for tree planting must also be submitted.
“To compensate for the ecological loss due to reclamation and implement proactive conservation policies, the government will construct a 338-hectare Sam Po Shue Wetland Conservation Park to ensure no net loss of ecological functions,” the board said.
Introduced by then-Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor in 2021, the project calls for turning more than 600 hectares near the city’s border with Shenzhen into an innovation and technology hub.
About half of the land will be developed for innovation and technology industries, with the rest reserved to build a new town centre that will supply 50,000 residential flats to help ease the city’s housing crunch.
Authorities had envisaged that the technopole would become a “self-sufficient, integrated neighbourhood with comprehensive public and community facilities”, saying there would be a recreational and cultural complex, as well as governmental and community facilities, to cater to the residents’ needs.
However, green groups were concerned that the development project would result in the loss of 240 hectares of wetland conservation areas and environmental buffer zones south of the Shenzhen River.
The 10 advocacy groups, including Greenpeace and WWF Hong Kong, said they had identified 35 violations of statutory requirements and guidelines, and up to 27 “serious technical assessment and data errors”.
Of the 1,618 submissions sent to the board during the public consultation, only 105 supported the development and about 1,500 expressed opposition.
But the board said on Friday that most comments supported the proposal, with some having different opinions on developing I&T industries near fish ponds.
