ENG-1992 — Page 221

LAND, PUBLIC WORKS AND UTILITIES

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social and economic trends. Major revisions during the year included road standards and internal transport (including parking) facilities, new standard design school buildings, standards and guidelines for industrial development, open space and recreation facilities, and planning guidelines for conservation of natural landscape.

A summary of the standards and guidelines has long been made available to the public. Since 1990, the distribution of the HKPSG has been extended to the libraries of tertiary educational institutions, public libraries and other institutions. To further promote public awareness of planning and to facilitate the use of these guidelines by non-government bodies in their own work, the government decided to publish the document chapter by chapter for public reference. At the end of 1992, nine chapters of the document were available for sale at the Government Publications Sales Centre.

Territorial Development Strategy

The Territorial Development Strategy (TDS) provides a broad long-term land use- transport-environmental framework for the planning and development of the territory. It aims to facilitate the continued growth of the territory as a regional centre and international city. A comprehensive review of the strategy was commenced in 1990 to assess the implications of the proposed port and airport developments and the current policies on environment and transport, taking into account the changing role of the - territory in the context of recent economic and infrastructural developments in the Pearl

River Delta region and the deeper hinterland of China.

The TDS Review consists of three main streams of work. The first stream, which has been completed, comprises appraisal and review studies, including identification and assessment of goals and objectives, key issues, development constraints and opportunities, evaluation criteria, and sectorial land use studies on industry, housing, office and business park, recreation, rural land, landscape/conservation and environment. The second stream, which is now in progress, comprises formulation and evaluation of TDS development options on the basis of the results of the first stream. The third stream consists of production of a recommended development strategy and a medium term implementation plan. The current review of the TDS is expected to be completed in 1993.

Sub-Regional Development Strategies

The Sub-Regional Development Strategies serve as a bridge between the TDS and district plans. They are prepared to translate the long-term broad-brush territorial goals into district planning objectives for the five sub-regions of Hong Kong, namely Metro area, North East New Territories (NENT), South East New Territories (SENT), North West New Territories (NWNT) and South West New Territories (SWNT). Following the government's decision in October 1989 on the replacement airport at Chek Lap Kok and on port expansion, work on the review for the NWNT and SWNT sub-regions commenced in early 1990. Each of these reviews aims at producing for the sub-region an appropriate land use-transport-environment strategic development framework for the target year 2011.

The review of the NWNT Development Strategy has examined key issues in the NWNT including the protection of Deep Bay and the Mai Po marshes, problems of open storage, flooding and deteriorated agricultural land. Given a long-term land use budget and inputs from other relevant studies such as the Port and Airport Development Strategy (PADS) and the Rural Planning and Improvement Strategy (RPIS), three development scenarios