ENG-1992 — Page 425

THE ENVIRONMENT

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of Deep Bay. The two sides have agreed on a joint action plan for controlling development and pollution. This aims to preserve and protect Hong Kong's sites of special scientific interest, including the important ecosystems of Mai Po and Inner Deep Bay, as well as the Fu Tien Nature Reserve on the Shenzhen side.

At the district planning level, the Hong Kong Housing Society and the Land Development Corporation now review major public housing schemes and redevelopment initiatives within the urban areas. Sites with severe environmental problems, such as severe traffic noise, for which there are no practical controls, should be rezoned and appropriately developed. At other less problematic sites proper building designs and layouts will reduce the environmental impacts to acceptable levels.

The government intends to include lease conditions requiring developers to provide suitable windows and air conditioning to protect future residents against aircraft noise under the flight path of the Kai Tak airport. The airport will operate until mid 1997.

Planning applications for major projects that may cause environmental concerns must include documents that show their environmental acceptability. Unacceptable proposals are often rejected, or have stringent environmental requirements imposed as conditions of approval.

The most common reason for rejecting a planning proposal on environmental grounds in the main urban area is the juxtaposition of incompatible land uses. One notable example is a proposal to build two high-rise residential blocks next to Kennedy Town Abattoir. This could cause intractable noise and odour problems to future residents. The government is now looking for a way to move the abattoir as soon as possible to provide for existing and proposed housing in the area.

Other examples, where residential and industrial interfaces have in the most part been overcome, include a cotton mill redevelopment in Tuen Mun and a redevelopment adjacent to a cement plant in Tsing Yi.

Port and airport development

During 1992 the focus for the Port and Airport Development Strategy shifted towards the implementation of the recommendations of environmental impact studies. The strategy includes projects related to the airport and port. The airport related projects comprise a number of project elements: the new airport at Chek Lap Kok; North Lantau new town developments; transport links to Hong Kong Island comprising the North Lantau Expressway, the Lantau Fixed Crossing, Route 3, the West Kowloon Expressway, the Western Harbour Crossing, the Airport Railway; the West Kowloon Reclamation; and the Central and Wanchai Reclamation. The port related projects comprise the South-East Tsing Yi development for a container terminal, Lantau Port and Harbour Developments and the Tuen Mun and Tseung Kwan O Port Development.

This focus on the implementation issues entailed two aspects. First is the difficult process of translating the environmental impact assessments into contract and lease conditions for the construction phase of the projects. Second is incorporating environmental monitoring and auditing into the construction and operating phases of each development.

The construction of the West Kowloon Reclamation and road and rail links to the new airport will have some adverse environmental consequences. Already, the application of environmental planning has set out to redress these impacts through land use plans and pollution mitigation measures, for example by set backs to cut the impact of noise.