It’s a magnet for greens and developers alike. What price Lantau?

Wearing flip-flops to work is nothing unusual for Pan Yiu-kai, 42, a sales engineer for a telecommunications company. Unlike office-bound colleagues, he asked to work from his home, situated in natural surroundings on the north coast of Lantau Island. Little wonder, then, that he is peeved by other Tai O residents who hope the Government will some day build a road connecting the village with Tung Chung New Town. “I chose a simple lifestyle; I just want to see it preserved,” he says. “We have a natural environment here and it has already been destroyed by 10-storey high-rises. The SAR government should look towards China for development needs…the places that are less biologically important, less biodiverse places where they won’t do great damage to the ecosystem.”

The Tai O quandary represents a familiar struggle among competing elements on Lantau, and one that is set to spread to Mui Wo with the news this week that plans are afoot to link the town to the new North Lantau Expressway. Those elements are: residents who want to conserve their traditional lifestyle; neighbors who yearn for better links with the outside world; environmentalists who wish to preserve the island’s diverse ecosystem; and the Government, which faces constant pressure to provide more housing and other forms of development.

Ophelia Wong Yuen-sheung – sub-regional chief town planner for Hong Kong who is involved with the development of Lantau – can only give assurances that planners will abide by the interim Territorial Development Strategy Review (TDSR) outlined in 1993. “We envisage major growth around the new town of Tung Chung, but we see other areas on Lantau are mainly for conservation,” she says. “For the southern part of the island, we will take an area-by-area approach, with some limited growth. “But when the review process wraps up with public consultation later this year, the planning strategy laid out at sub-regional level – and based on the 1993 report – will itself be subject to review. It is no more comforting when Ms Wong adds that a proposal for a business estate near the villages of Yum O and Tsing Chau Tsai – on Lantau’s northeastern-most promontory – was added to the TDSR last year, even though it was not mentioned in the 1993 report.

Yun Tan, an artist living and working in Tai O, says a new road leading from Tung Chung New Town to the village will destroy the living space and limit, rather than expand, people’s choice. “In an ecosystem, different ways of life are needed for different things to live. You must maintain different environments. In ordinary people’s eyes, useless things are useful, and vice versa. “But, from behind one of many food shops that line the narrow streets of Tai O, Lou Cheuk-wing – of the Tai O Rural Committee – puts the case for a road. “A better infrastructure will keep our population from dwindling. We thought that with the new airport it could bring development of Lantau as well,” he says. Mr. Lou, who wants Tai O’s people to have more job opportunities and better access to the new town, suggests the traditional village way of life can be preserved in part by building a fishing shelter, which he thinks will encourage residents to stay put.

Ms Wong acknowledges that the issue has divided residents into one camp that believes airport-related developments are beneficial and another that maintains it will spell an end of their quiet rural life. “A link is justified for transportation. But there is the conservation aspect to consider,” she says. “It is also very costly because of the rugged terrain that would affect the country park. The government needs to take a balanced view.” One can hardly blame islanders for fearing their clear view of the mountains will be interrupted by modern low-rises and high-rises, with cement being poured over footpaths and roads proliferating willy-nilly.

The pace of Lantau’s urban development has accelerated since the early 1990s, with construction of the airport, Tung Chung New Town and transport links including Tsing Ma Bridge, North Lantau Expressway, the Lantau Link, an extended rail link and a third cross-harbour tunnel. Near Yam O there are proposals for a prison, a container port, and a business estate. Changes to Lantau – more and half of which is a designated country park – have been a source of discontent for residents since the 1960s, when Shek Pik Reservoir was built. Regarded as the first attempt to change their traditional way of life, it drew protests from villagers that their supply of paddy water would be disprupted.

Green groups now fear the fate of Lantau will be linked to the airport, and that the construction of one road will lead to the development of others. “Although change is supposed to be limited to the north shore, pressure on the rest of the island is bound to increase,” says Adrian Norris, co-ordination editor for Friends of the Earth’s Coastal Guide on Lantau, due out this month. He acknowledges the territory needs better infrastructure but says the Government must recognize other important elements are necessary for a good quality of life. “Hong Kong just obliterates the past. It pours concrete over everything with no regard for its people, their history, or its environment. And because of all this reclamation it is unlikely that our diverse ecology will survive in the future.” Mr. Norris laments the fate of wildlife such as pink dolphins, which can be seen in waters north and west of Lantau, and Romer’s tree frog, a thumbnail-sized amphibian found on Lamma, Lantau and, at one time, on Chek Lap Kok. He is also discouraged that a proposal to extend the border of Lantau’s country parks has lapsed. But he says: “It is not all hopeless. There’s still a lot to be conserved. We recognize the environment is threatened and the Government has got to act.”

Property agents are more upbeat, as Lantau is being transformed from a holiday-home attraction to an island for long-term residence. Census figures show Lantau’s residential population rose from 18,864 in 1991 to 25,291 last year. The number of residents in Discovery Bay more than doubled during that period. “It’s about 50-50 now,” says Rita Leung Yu-sim, general manager of marketing and services for Findley Leung Group, referring to the ratio between residential and commercial properties. “But it’s turned more residential because people just can’t afford the prices on Hong Kong. We see more electrical appliance shops and stores catering to households. We didn’t have those before.” She says prices for property on South Lantau, the agency’s main market, range from $1,500 a square foot in villages such as Pui O, to $10,000 a square foot in Discovery Bay. The future looks promising with the development of Tung Chung.

And the future of Tai O – with or without the controversial road – may not be as bleak as some are predicting. Peter Chow Chun-kip, senior town planner with the Island District Officer, says a study to review how Tai O can best be “revitalized” will be conducted later this year. “We will be looking at the opportunity and constraints, how we can revive the area, and how to strengthen the existing settlement and improve it. Do we want major urban development? Do we want tourist development?” Mr. Chow refuses to comment on the effect airport-related projects may have on Tai O. He says only: “Southern and central Lantau is still designed as a green area at the moment in the TDSR. That is what we planned for, and it is in the Government’s interest as well.” But the TDSR is still under consultation, and when it is completed much can change. What will happen to Tai O then? “We have no concrete plans,” Mr. Chow says, “just an intention to see what can be done.”

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