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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
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hope after the study and subsequent review of plot ratio, more Council facilities will be provided in the urban area and accepted by the public. Mr. Chairman, I support the amended motion.
MR. AMBROSE CHEUNG WING-SUM (in Cantonese):—Mr. Chairman, after listening to Mr. Ho, the mover of the amended motion and Mr. CHAN, the seconder. I get the feeling that the contents of their speeches are supported by me in spirit and in concrete terms. However, the wordings of their speeches and the amended motion do not match. As pointed out by Mr. PAO, if we use the word 'in accordance with', we adopt the passive approach and we put bounds on considerations and reviews of the entire development. Such binding wording in the amended motion cuts away the flexibility. I therefore do not support it.
As for the contents of their speeches, they also do not match the contents of the amended motion. The original motion is pro-active, providing facilities from the angle of community needs and looking at the need for land from the facilities to be provided. Under such a pro-active approach, even the Metroplan can be changed. When we examine the contents of the amended motion, we can see that there is no way that the Metroplan can be changed. For example, an area is demarcated in the Metroplan as an industrial area, however, after consideration, the Council feels it should be demarcated for use as sitting-out areas; what can be done to amend it? We may be bound by the wording to engineer any change.
Moreover, according to the amended motion, when we speak of long-term transport strategy and land use which involve a lot of land use planning, what can we do if we want to look at long-term traffic needs? What about land use when we look at the long-term housing strategy? These examples show that Government follows different outlines when planning and providing facilities and at the same time plans are drawn up. Going back to the original motion, I agree that it is pro-active and free of bounds, flexible and based on need. It considers the many kinds of strategic planning I just referred to and then takes the initiative to negotiate with Government for land use. Mr. Chairman, with these remarks, I oppose the amended motion.
MR. JOSEPH CHAN YEUK-SUT (in Cantonese):—Mr. Chairman, the amended motion proposed to base on a five year plan of the Council now in force in bidding for land for use under the 10-year capital work plan. I think it is inadequate. Of course, it is possible to conduct a policy review of the Council's five year plan, but if we try to bid land for capital work projects, there is just not enough time to do so. For a capital works project of the Council, Government often took more than five years to allocate land. If a project takes five years from the initial design stage to completion, then it has to be a short-term programme. As pointed out by some of my colleagues, we have been taking the passive approach. Land was in the past allocated to the Council and
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