To answer the pressing problem of the housing shortage, Hong Kong is planning to build the world’s largest artificial island with an eye-watering $79 billion price tag.
Hong Kong is notoriously known as one of the least affordable markets on the planet. The island will be about 2,471 acres of land around the territory’s largest island, Lantau.
The work on the artificial island will start in 2025. Residents are expected to move to the island in 2032. The island is expected to be nearly three times the size of New York’s Central Park and provide up to 260,000 flats, over 70% of which would be used for public housing.
The island will be the most expensive infrastructure project to date. It will be costlier than Dubai’s famous palm-tree shaped Palm Jumeirah and will be four times the cost of building Hong Kong International Airport.
However, all is not going well with plans as the Lantau Tomorrow Vision project is receiving flak from multiple quarters over environmental concerns and the whopping amount that will be siphoned off the city’s coffers.
Greenpeace Hong Kong has even claimed that the government has ignored the cheaper as well as less environmentally detrimental solutions that it has provided.
The other concern surrounding the project surrounds future proofing of reclamation projects given the rising global sea levels due to rapid climate change. However, the authorities claimed that the new island will be at least 19 feet above sea level, and will be designed in a way so that it can withstand super typhoons that are frequent occurrences in that part of the world.
