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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
ADDRESS BY CHAIRMAN
CHAIRMAN (in English):-Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen, Council is called to order.
MINUTES
The minutes of the meeting held on 13 May 1980 were confirmed.
STATEMENT BY CHAIRMAN
CHAIRMAN (in English):-The planting season is in full swing again. Its importance can hardly be stressed enough in Hong Kong's heavy concentration of people and buildings in a circumscribed land area.
It is intended to plant 15,444 trees and 338,400 shrubs in the urban districts in 1980. Nearly 30 beautification projects will be done in addition and there are many more spots due for such treatment in the future. Much depends on trained manpower being available and weather conditions favourable. The inadequate capacity of plant nurseries is a limiting factor too, so recourse is had sometimes to outside supplies to supplement stocks or for a special selection to suit a particular purpose.
Much as the Council has done to put down trees and shrubs in the last two decades there is always more to do each year. Typhoons take their toll as do pollution and vandalism. Re-development of old districts for high-density living often entails the destruction of gardens and roadside trees. Penetration into new areas might likewise change the local ecology if done without care and control.
It is essential to mitigate the harshness of concentrated living conditions and the frenetic construction activity going on well-nigh all the time. High density breeds problems of many dimensions obviously. Counteraction is primarily the duty of the public authorities in the circumstances. Hence, the added social importance of public green areas and recreation opportunities for the well-being of the community. Yet, when the opportunity arises, it is lost more often than not. The inordinate pressures of vested interests seem too strong for the powers that be in a position to resist them for the common good but do not do so stoutly enough, if the record is anything to go by. There may be the conviction that far more must be done for the rest and recreation of the community but not the will to withstand the greed of socially mindless lobbies bent on grabbing every plot of land for private exploitation. The bait is of course the bloated revenue from land auctions accruing to a public administration already flush with surplus money not easy to employ for the direct benefit of the people here without aggravating inflation. What
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
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may now be a windfall will be fast dissipated when a more demanding community insists on costly corrective measures for better living.
When the military authorities relinquished their extensive and well-located holdings, there was the hope every time that a concerned government would seize the never-to-be-repeated chance to set right the terrible inadequacy of vital open spaces for public pleasure and pastime pursuits. But this has not been so, by and large. The situation is so bad in some places that it compels the Council to lay out children's playgrounds even high above street-level, to take only one example of make-do-and-mend measures.
The Council still saved the day here and there. When Whitfield Barracks was given up, its vigorous intervention changed the situation completely. Indeed, it improved from a mere 16 acres originally proposed for public use, then revised to 24 and now to 39.5 under development in stages as the Kowloon Park. Anyway, the new park has served the people well right from the start not only for their recreation but also as a centre of free public entertainment programmes.
For every bit of open land that the people now enjoy for their mental and physical health, there is at least just as much acreage lost forever. The community's last hope in the Central District is the choice Victoria Barracks. It will go sadly by default. Though the acreage for public use has been increased since the community raised a hue and cry three years ago, it is still much less than proper town-planning prescribes for a major city living in deplorably overcrowded conditions. Powerful interests must have intervened to deprive the public of its basic needs in a populous society long at a disadvantage in this respect. Much of what will be preserved consists of wooded slopes where building development would not be possible without the high cost of making them safe. In any case, the public must make do with the crumbs that fall off the official table. So it seems in this society every time.
The only hope now of correcting the imbalance between excessively high-density living and the lack of open spaces in the settled districts bordering on the harbour to reach even minimally acceptable requirements will be by reclaiming more land but there are tidal and other constraints in this exercise. Even so, the Council must be vigilant and so must the people be if they are to get a fair share in the end. Meanwhile, the people must also look even more to the New Territories for their recreation. Consequently, local urban and rural needs apart, there should also be complementary development of physical facilities for the requirements of city dwellers if transport difficulties do not keep them away.
Once again, let this Council repeat its call for total planning of scarce land resources to the highest standards. An ambitious community with more leisure-time should not put up with less. There is money in the public coffers to back up its just aspirations. Are they to be frustrated arbitrarily?