The Hong Kong government has expressed its “regret” over an Apple Daily report on the chief executive’s alleged plans to turn a Tseung Kwan O landfill into a housing complex, calling the article “self-contradictory, confusing and misleading”.
The Development Bureau issued the statement on Aug. 12, a day after the article was published.
According to the article, a confidential document revealed that Chief Executive CY Leung planned to turn a large landfill in Tseung Kwan O, known as Area 137, into a 100,000-person public housing complex.
Apple Daily claimed that Leung had turned a blind eye to experts who advised against the plan – including those from the civil engineering and environmental departments.
In the statement, the government stressed that the residential site in the study “is not located at the landfill”, but at a temporarily “fill-bank” being used for “placing construction and works waste”.
The bureau also said that it told the newspaper that the study was part of a land use review, which is performed from time to time in different districts, in order to increase the land supply for the city’s development needs.
Apple Daily had also claimed that Tuen Mun District Council Chairman Lau Wong-fat proposed to relocate the Tseung Kwan O landfill to Lung Ku Wan village in the New Territories if the plan were to go ahead.
Lau, who owns some properties in the area, would have received tens of millions of dollars as compensation, the newspaper wrote.
He did not comment on the allegation but told Apple Daily that relocating his village would be “a viable option”, and that development is necessary.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
