While general decisions on the development of the Northern New Territories must await engineering studies and the assessment of the resources involved in them, a decision on Tin Shui Wai cannot so easily be postponed. The Special Committee on Land Production has already expressed concern that there is a danger of a gap in land production particularly for residential development opening up in the mid-eighties (see extract from latest report at Annex D) which, in the present state of land investigations and studies, would be very difficult to make up from other sources. There is also a shortfall in housing production in known development areas in the mid-eighties ar thereafter and the proposal that the developers should hand over a fair proportion of the area for public housing would be very welcome, quite apart from the contribution the development would make to private sector housing during that period. Nevertheless, it must be recognised at this stage that because of the expected scale of the development, commitment to Tin Shui Wai development, could force Government to restrain its own development efforts elsewhere, if the pressure on the economy and particularly the construction industry made such restraint
necessary.
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The Director of New Territories Development considers that Tin Shui Wai area offers the quickest and probably the cheapest opportunity for land production which is presently available in the New Territories. He also advises that private sector development offers the best opportunity to develop the area quickly.
CONFIDENTIAL
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15.6. 198
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