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CA's View on the Mega Tower Hotel Project
 
*The Town Planning Board rejected the developer's submission on 25 February 2005. This page is a translation of the article published in Ming Pao on 24 February.
 
The Town Planning Board decided to defer the decision on the controversial Mega Tower Hotel project last December as the members wanted to take into account of the public view and result of the Legco case conference. Whether the Behemoth of the near 60-story high twin tower hotel could be built depends on the meeting of the Board on 25 this month.

It is said that the project could generate 6 000 long term and temporary jobs and $1.8 billion of government land revenue as half of the site is public land. Notwithstanding The Conservancy Association had opposed to the developer’s submission to the Board since last April. The developer had repeatedly said in the public that they did not understand why The Conservancy Association was anti-development.

We are by no means anti-development, what the Association is against is development that is unsustainable, and unfortunately the Mega Tower Hotel project in its present from, falls in this category. No matter how many jobs and how much revenue the project can generate, they simply cannot cover the damage it will bring about in the long run.

The Association does not oppose the construction of the hotel on private lands, that is the developer’s legal right. However, the developer has included government land into the latest plan and pushed the development scale and density to the limit.

It must be emphasized that the site is not zoned as “Commercial,” but “Other Use” annotated Comprehensive Redevelopment Area (OU(CRA)), which does not has a predetermined plot ratio so that various environment, traffic and other constraints can be taken account of and appropriate planning control over the development scale and design be exercised. The developer seems to be blind to the constraints and has to develop every single inch of the land; No doubt that will maximize his profit, but to negative impacts on traffic and environment are irrevocable.

Although the hotel will have more than 2 000 rooms, there is only one entrance at the narrow winding Kennedy Road. The Transport Department opposed the project strongly initially, but fell silent after the developer pull a series of number tricks and exerted various forms of pressure. The developer’s major improvement measure on traffic is to widen the junction between Kennedy Road and Queen’s Road East; but its effusiveness is hanging on assumptions that are either subjective or questionable. The developer estimated for every 100 rooms, only six trips will be generated per hour during the am peak hours, which is the average of all hotels in Hong Kong, but may not be the case for hotels in Central and Wanchai. The developer also estimated that 70% of the traffic at the junction is east bound and the remaining 30% west bound. But this estimate is subjective and unrealistic. If anything goes wrong, traffic congestion will not be contained in Wanchai but extended to Central. As the project has considerable impact, The Association is of the view that Transport Department should require the developer to conduct a test at nearby hotels and reverse the proportion of the junction traffic to see what impact the Mega Tower Hotel will bring in the worst case scenario.

The site also houses the largest woodland in Wanchai, which is right on the government slope. Within the woodland there are over a-hundred-year-old banyan trees merging with the pre-war stonewall they grow on. Three hundred and ninety trees will be chopped down in exchange of covered open space; this trend of privatizing public land must be stopped. The twin tower will also act as a humongous screen obstruction the view from Bowen Road looking over the sea and from North Wanchai to the mountain as well as the dispersion of motor vehicle emission.

The developer of the project claimed that he was a victim of “collusion between business and the Government” because the hotel could not be built 20 years after its inception. It will be better off for the developer to rethink his project rather than pointing fingers at others. If he has solid proof, he should reveal it to the public in order to protect the rule or law and level playing field of Hong Kong. Also the Government should not fail to uphold its standard just because someone cries foul.