A Hong Kong megaproject could mean trillions

Kaizer Lau Ping-cheung, a former surveyor and lawmaker, says the 1,700 hectare Lantau land reclamation project proposed by Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam is too small.

He claims the 1,700-hectare reclamation project off Lantau Island will break even within 20 years and could make trillions of dollars from the deal.

Those opposing Lam’s “Lantau Tomorrow Vision” believe the scheme will come at high environmental and economic costs – conservative estimates put the price tag at about HK$500 billion (US$63.8 billion), roughly half of the city’s fiscal reserves, while others put it closer to HK$1 trillion.

Lau said that based on potential land sales for residential development – assuming that one in every five square meters could be developed, sold at HK$10,000 per square foot and with a 70/30 split between public and private housing – plus commercial and industrial uses, about HK$1.6 trillion in land revenue could be generated.

GDP growth in the Greater Bay Area (Hong Kong, Macau and nine Guangdong cities) will support an even larger project.

Lau proposes financing the project without spending public money by issuing bonds or putting the reclamation works up for public bidding.

Yeung Ha-chi, of land concern group Liber Research Community, warned that such partnerships were also prone to failure, and cited the examples of development areas such as Tin Shui Wai in the New Territories, and Ma Wan, near Tsing Yi.

West Kowloon [reclamation] project was supposed to ease the urban density of Yau Tsim Mong district, but it was used to build luxury estates.

30 thoughts on “A Hong Kong megaproject could mean trillions”

  1. FWIW – I have been working on a unique over-the-river building for 2 years. I’ve completely modeled it in Sketch-Up, with the great aid of my Engineer partner. The RiverArch presentation – now 41 slides, including all baseline projections and finances for what would be the largest building in the world, by floor area, has been shown to major architectural, engineering and investment firms. Yesterday, I and 2 of our growing team met with Goldman Sachs. Originally designed for the East River of Manhattan, between Dumbo and Brooklyn, it could also be deployed in several of Hong Kong’s many bays and inlets. A version of the presentation is now making the rounds in China (and Switzerland too), looking for investors. More details and a fly-through tour here: h t t p : // bit.ly / 2OKN2UM (I don’t know how this URL will turn out with Vunkle, but take out all spaces). Full presentation to accredited investors and serious developers upon request, in person if in the NYC area, or via Skype/phone if not.

  2. reclamation project of an island is not efficient, because building bridges is too expensive. Just fill lands in sea connecting Lantau and Hong Kong Island. No bridges but big transverse undersea tunnels or routes are created for fishes .

  3. FWIW – I have been working on a unique over-the-river building for 2 years. I’ve completely modeled it in Sketch-Up with the great aid of my Engineer partner. The RiverArch presentation – now 41 slides including all baseline projections and finances for what would be the largest building in the world by floor area has been shown to major architectural engineering and investment firms. Yesterday I and 2 of our growing team met with Goldman Sachs. Originally designed for the East River of Manhattan between Dumbo and Brooklyn it could also be deployed in several of Hong Kong’s many bays and inlets. A version of the presentation is now making the rounds in China (and Switzerland too) looking for investors.More details and a fly-through tour here: h t t p : // bit.ly / 2OKN2UM (I don’t know how this URL will turn out with Vunkle but take out all spaces).Full presentation to accredited investors and serious developers upon request in person if in the NYC area or via Skype/phone if not.

  4. reclamation project of an island is not efficient because building bridges is too expensive. Just fill lands in sea connecting Lantau and Hong Kong Island. No bridges but big transverse undersea tunnels or routes are created for fishes .

  5. While making islands can take fish habitat, it is not entirely environmentally destructive because if the fill is dredged as it typically is, then it actually reduces sea level rise. All the fill volume that is above ocean level is making space for more ocean water where it was taken from. Environmentalists should simply insist that the island be a few feet higher to get something from the project. I don’t think that hurts the land value either. People should be lees concerned about storm surges and tsunamis. And they could ask that the dredge come from seabed below 1,000ft down. Algae does not get enough light to survive below that, so there are much less fish. And whatever is there, will not be disturbed much. You don’t want to fight development, just tweak it to consider the environment. There is a lot of ocean just over 1000 ft deep, a lot of that could be raised and made into islands for virtually no environmental cost. We would need much more powerful dredgers to reduce the cost and time involved, but we could add quite a bit of land.

  6. While making islands can take fish habitat it is not entirely environmentally destructive because if the fill is dredged as it typically is then it actually reduces sea level rise. All the fill volume that is above ocean level is making space for more ocean water where it was taken from.Environmentalists should simply insist that the island be a few feet higher to get something from the project. I don’t think that hurts the land value either. People should be lees concerned about storm surges and tsunamis. And they could ask that the dredge come from seabed below 1000ft down. Algae does not get enough light to survive below that so there are much less fish. And whatever is there will not be disturbed much.You don’t want to fight development just tweak it to consider the environment.There is a lot of ocean just over 1000 ft deep a lot of that could be raised and made into islands for virtually no environmental cost. We would need much more powerful dredgers to reduce the cost and time involved but we could add quite a bit of land.

  7. While making islands can take fish habitat, it is not entirely environmentally destructive because if the fill is dredged as it typically is, then it actually reduces sea level rise. All the fill volume that is above ocean level is making space for more ocean water where it was taken from. Environmentalists should simply insist that the island be a few feet higher to get something from the project. I don’t think that hurts the land value either. People should be lees concerned about storm surges and tsunamis. And they could ask that the dredge come from seabed below 1,000ft down. Algae does not get enough light to survive below that, so there are much less fish. And whatever is there, will not be disturbed much. You don’t want to fight development, just tweak it to consider the environment. There is a lot of ocean just over 1000 ft deep, a lot of that could be raised and made into islands for virtually no environmental cost. We would need much more powerful dredgers to reduce the cost and time involved, but we could add quite a bit of land.

  8. While making islands can take fish habitat it is not entirely environmentally destructive because if the fill is dredged as it typically is then it actually reduces sea level rise. All the fill volume that is above ocean level is making space for more ocean water where it was taken from.Environmentalists should simply insist that the island be a few feet higher to get something from the project. I don’t think that hurts the land value either. People should be lees concerned about storm surges and tsunamis. And they could ask that the dredge come from seabed below 1000ft down. Algae does not get enough light to survive below that so there are much less fish. And whatever is there will not be disturbed much.You don’t want to fight development just tweak it to consider the environment.There is a lot of ocean just over 1000 ft deep a lot of that could be raised and made into islands for virtually no environmental cost. We would need much more powerful dredgers to reduce the cost and time involved but we could add quite a bit of land.

  9. While making islands can take fish habitat, it is not entirely environmentally destructive because if the fill is dredged as it typically is, then it actually reduces sea level rise. All the fill volume that is above ocean level is making space for more ocean water where it was taken from.

    Environmentalists should simply insist that the island be a few feet higher to get something from the project. I don’t think that hurts the land value either. People should be lees concerned about storm surges and tsunamis. And they could ask that the dredge come from seabed below 1,000ft down. Algae does not get enough light to survive below that, so there are much less fish. And whatever is there, will not be disturbed much.

    You don’t want to fight development, just tweak it to consider the environment.

    There is a lot of ocean just over 1000 ft deep, a lot of that could be raised and made into islands for virtually no environmental cost. We would need much more powerful dredgers to reduce the cost and time involved, but we could add quite a bit of land.

  10. FWIW – I have been working on a unique over-the-river building for 2 years. I’ve completely modeled it in Sketch-Up, with the great aid of my Engineer partner. The RiverArch presentation – now 41 slides, including all baseline projections and finances for what would be the largest building in the world, by floor area, has been shown to major architectural, engineering and investment firms. Yesterday, I and 2 of our growing team met with Goldman Sachs. Originally designed for the East River of Manhattan, between Dumbo and Brooklyn, it could also be deployed in several of Hong Kong’s many bays and inlets. A version of the presentation is now making the rounds in China (and Switzerland too), looking for investors. More details and a fly-through tour here: h t t p : // bit.ly / 2OKN2UM (I don’t know how this URL will turn out with Vunkle, but take out all spaces). Full presentation to accredited investors and serious developers upon request, in person if in the NYC area, or via Skype/phone if not.

  11. FWIW – I have been working on a unique over-the-river building for 2 years. I’ve completely modeled it in Sketch-Up with the great aid of my Engineer partner. The RiverArch presentation – now 41 slides including all baseline projections and finances for what would be the largest building in the world by floor area has been shown to major architectural engineering and investment firms. Yesterday I and 2 of our growing team met with Goldman Sachs. Originally designed for the East River of Manhattan between Dumbo and Brooklyn it could also be deployed in several of Hong Kong’s many bays and inlets. A version of the presentation is now making the rounds in China (and Switzerland too) looking for investors.More details and a fly-through tour here: h t t p : // bit.ly / 2OKN2UM (I don’t know how this URL will turn out with Vunkle but take out all spaces).Full presentation to accredited investors and serious developers upon request in person if in the NYC area or via Skype/phone if not.

  12. reclamation project of an island is not efficient, because building bridges is too expensive. Just fill lands in sea connecting Lantau and Hong Kong Island. No bridges but big transverse undersea tunnels or routes are created for fishes .

  13. reclamation project of an island is not efficient because building bridges is too expensive. Just fill lands in sea connecting Lantau and Hong Kong Island. No bridges but big transverse undersea tunnels or routes are created for fishes .

  14. FWIW – I have been working on a unique over-the-river building for 2 years. I’ve completely modeled it in Sketch-Up, with the great aid of my Engineer partner. The RiverArch presentation – now 41 slides, including all baseline projections and finances for what would be the largest building in the world, by floor area, has been shown to major architectural, engineering and investment firms. Yesterday, I and 2 of our growing team met with Goldman Sachs. Originally designed for the East River of Manhattan, between Dumbo and Brooklyn, it could also be deployed in several of Hong Kong’s many bays and inlets. A version of the presentation is now making the rounds in China (and Switzerland too), looking for investors.
    More details and a fly-through tour here:
    h t t p : // bit.ly / 2OKN2UM (I don’t know how this URL will turn out with Vunkle, but take out all spaces).
    Full presentation to accredited investors and serious developers upon request, in person if in the NYC area, or via Skype/phone if not.

  15. reclamation project of an island is not efficient, because building bridges is too expensive. Just fill lands in sea connecting Lantau and Hong Kong Island. No bridges but big transverse undersea tunnels or routes are created for fishes .

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