ENG-1996 — Page 277

LAND, PUBLIC WORKS AND UTILITIES

Islands District

Hong Kong's ninth new town is about to take shape at Tung Chung on northern Lantau Island and will provide a supporting community for the new airport at nearby Chek Lap Kok. The new town will be developed on about 760 hectares of land and will be designed to modern international standards, with residential, industrial and commercial developments and all the necessary supporting infrastructure.

The new town will comprise two urban development areas at Tung Chung and Tai Ho, with proposed populations of 150 000 and 50 000 respectively, by the year 2011. Possible expansion areas in the new town have the potential to accommodate an additional population of 60 000. The Tung Chung town centre will be the retail, commercial and cultural core of the new town. Land will be reserved at Siu Ho Wan for airport-related industrial uses and major utilities, including a water treatment works, a sewage treatment works, railway depot and a refuse transfer station.

There will be five phases of development for the new town. The first phase is earmarked as one of the Airport Core Programme projects and will be substantially completed by 1997 accommodating about 20 000 residents at Tung Chung. Construction of the first stage of the North Lantau sewage collection, treatment and disposal system has been completed. Site formation and infrastructure works for the Phase II development are also in progress.

Elsewhere in the Islands District, major capital works including site formation for the rural public housing estate and Home Ownership Scheme in Sin Yan Tseng, Cheung Chau has recently been completed. Construction of sewers for Pun Lo Pang, Tai O and the road improvement works for Cheung Chau Old Town has just started.

Rural Planning and Improvement Strategy

The Rural Planning and Improvement Strategy (RPIS) aims to improve the quality of life in the rural areas of the New Territories. It is implemented at both strategic and district levels.

At the strategic level, land-use policies are continuously reviewed to control incompatible developments and provide a more sustainable and cost-effective basis for public and private investments. Several reviews and studies have been, or are being, undertaken, including studies of open storage and port back-up land requirements, and a review of the rural improvement concept.

At the district level, minor improvement projects are undertaken under the rural development programmes. The Home Affairs Department, by virtue of its close contacts with rural residents and groups, knowledge of local needs and well- established consultation mechanism, assumed control for the planning, management and implementation of minor rural improvement schemes since late 1994.

A streamlined two-tier administrative structure consisting of the RPIS Minor Works Steering Committee attended by representatives from Heung Yee Kuk and New Territories District Boards (NTDBs) and the District Working Groups attended by representatives of NTDBS and Rural Communities has been adopted. With this two-tier structure, there is a stronger local participation in the identification of local needs, prioritisation of project implementation and resolving of local objections.

Major improvement works, such as river-training works and village flood protection works, continued to be implemented by the Territory Development

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