SYNOPSIS
1. INTRODUCTION*
Overcoming alienation of the individual caused by the break-up of traditional – both physical & social "sense of community" is the most important challenge facing community planners today.
1.1 San Tin is the largest "lineal village" in the New Territories, and some believe one of, if not the largest in all South China. Today, surrounding urban sprawl, the rising value of land, and subsequent piecemeal development are threatening the physical environmental as well as the social life of San Tin. The San Tin village people see their villages in the not too distant future - breaking up, and their heritage dying. One thing is clear. San Tin must somehow control its surrounding (and as yet, undeveloped) rural land use beyond what it does today, if any sense of traditional village-based community is to survive.
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1.2 The San Tin watershed can in a sense be seen as a cultural and environmental envelope. Because of this special circumstance, and San Tin's unique environmental, cultural, and land ownership characteristics described only very briefly in this Synopsis - San Tin provides an unique opportunity to solve many of the natural and social environmental dilemmas currently confronting villagers and regional Government alike.
1.3 The proposals in this Master Plan describe a "balanced" community future for San Tin; a future maximizing community improvement effects - regional as well as local public & private benefits - while effectively minimizing negative environmental and social impacts, as well as Government financial and administrative involvement. San Tin should be seen as a regionally-responsive problem solving exercise. An exercise in tune with the needs of the San Tin village people, as well as with the realities of New Territories economic, environmental, and cultural life.
2. GEOGRAPHICS*
2.1 The villages of San Tin are located in the North West corner of the New Terri- tories and are all included within the San Tin watershed. The San Tin village region is under the jurisdiction of the Government of the Crown Colony of Hong Kong. The northern boundary of the site abuts the Hong Kong-China International Boundary.
2.2 Boundary definition is the first critical step in any community planning and development process. * San Tin falls within the Northwest New Territories Study Area boundary. The Study boundary outlined in this master plan, unlike the North West New Territories boundary, does not represent an administrative unit. It represents the watershed of the hills which surround the San Tin villages. This boundary was chosen as an identifiable and convenient unit for environmental as well as land ownership reasons, i.e., water pollution can be controlled within a watershed region, and the Man family controls almost all of the privately-owned land within this area. The Chau Tau corner of the site (the northeastern corner of the San Tin watershed) was added to the planning area in the spring of 1980 at the request of the Chau Tau village people.
2.3 San Tin lies in a low coastal plain, surrounded by high hills and the saline Mai Po marshes of Deep Bay. In 1970, the San Tin villages had a population of nearly 3,500 (including emigrants). Today's combined village population is approximately 4,000. (A considerable percentage of whom have village houses in San Tin.) To these people, San Tin is still their home.
2.4 The total area of the San Tin watershed is 1059 hectares 223 hectares of which is border marsh "restricted area".
*See Volume 2, Chapter 1 for details.
*See Volume 2, Chapter 2 for details.
CHINA
Shum Chun Special Economic Zone
Tuen Muri
District
LANTAU ISLAND
Regional Setting
SAN TIN
Yuen Lorig District !
• FUEN LONG
NEW TERRITORIES
SAN TIN
Northern District
•SHRUNG SARLY
چاہتے
HONG KONG ISLAND
• LEGEND
1
Study Area
-- MAJOR HIGHWAY
MTN
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