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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
ADDRESS BY CHAIRMAN
CHAIRMAN (in English):-Good afternoon, Ladies and gentlemen, Coun
is called to order.
MINUTES
The minutes of the meeting held on 12 June 1979 were confirmed.
STATEMENT BY CHAIRMAN
CHAIRMAN (in English):-To make Hong Kong a city fit for all to live by any standard is everybody's business. But even just making it green a
pleasing is not easy as not many people seem to care.
In the last century a start was made to turn some barren hillsides int lush areas while many roads and streets were lined with shady trees. The planting programme was resumed after the war to recover from the depreda tions of the lost years. What man did before to help nature beautify Ho Kong and to prevent erosion, he has been destroying callously in the las twenty-five years. The rush to put up a high-rise building on every unlikel plot of land however small or precariously perched, has changed the environ ment, created high-density social and municipal problems, aggravated traffic congestion on an inadequate road system and caused grave doubts abou soil stability in many places. This is perhaps the deferred price Hong Kong pays for its pell-mell progress.
All the greater is now the need to intensify the reafforestation of hillside and to plant even more trees and shrubs in the city. This is an unending! commitment for regretfully trees are felled and green slopes cut down al the time even as work goes on to restore or improve other areas. Vandalis still takes its toll as does pollution in city districts while careless fires bun out large tracts of the countryside each year and typhoons uproot tre everywhere. Now, there is another incipient factor: here, there and every where, geotechnical requirements prescribe the heavy felling of trees and the ugly treatment of green slopes as part of costly soil stabilisation measures to protect life and limb at public expense which building development ha endangered presumably.
Since 1 April 1973 the Council has put down 123 252 trees and 503 58 shrubs in all ten districts apart from forming a great number of amenity plots along thoroughfares. In the current year, 15 000 trees and 95 000 shrub are being put down. And, this has now become an annually recurring exercise. varying only in numbers and locations. Not only does the Council rely fo this purpose on its own 9 plant nurseries which periodically give way t steady building encroachment, but it also buys supplies from private source
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
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to augment its own stocks with special selections whenever there is an
advantage in doing so.
More beautification projects are put together as the training of staff in horticulture and landscape work, both here and abroad, makes its mark. It may be expected then that many more public places will be laid out in a far more attractive fashion for the enjoyment of the people who make
use of them.
Unceasing redevelopment of the city has taken over green areas through- out Hong Kong. New schemes absorb open land on the outskirts or tear down hillsides. A persistent effort must be made urgently to counter despoliation of beauty spots and preserve whatever greenery remains, yet it is even more significant to create new rest areas as the face of the city changes incessantly. The Council has put up a stout resistance to such destruction in the last two decades; at the same time, it has also acted positively to provide far more open spaces than ever found before to cope with the needs of a people living in overcrowded conditions and now enjoying more leisure time. By dividing the urban areas into ten amenity zones and examining their separate existing and projected land allocations carefully, it has established the com- munity's requirements for public open spaces and green belts in every district and staked a claim for them, particularly when new reclamations and former military lands are carved up by the planners. Unfortunately it is not always successful in finding new open land to replace the mounting loss due to extensive development projects by private enterprise with the predictable object of maximising returns on investment. Curiously enough, the people appointed to decide on land use, who should be enlightened allies, give instead the impression of being more concerned with the record sums of money that the public auctions of Crown land bring to the exchequer than with the obviously higher expectations of a new generation seeking a more satisfying civic life. True, some green areas for rest and recreation are marked out on the plans but far less acreage is allocated than what the people need. Even so, there are now 1035 with an additional 128 under planning compared to only 268 acres when the Council started campaigning hard for more public open spaces in the city just twenty years ago, but there are now also more built-up areas with heavy concentrations of people.
There can be no breathing-spell in the fight for a better city. The more progress is made, the more the problems are aggravated by hordes of new people, apart from other reactionary factors. This is the sad record. More so, then, must the community join ranks with the Council to persuade the authorities by weight of public opinion to create an altogether healthier and more pleasant environment. This should be done in earnest by setting more exacting planning standards and upholding them against powerful pressure lobbies of vested interests. Inadequate control over the postwar re-construc- tion of Hong Kong, with apparent omission to enforce lease conditions rigidly or impose basic social requirements--indeed, the seeming disregard