Tuen Mun New Town

History

The initial plan for Tuen Mun New Town can be traced to a report by consulting firm Scott Wilson Kirkpatrick & Partners in 1959. At that time the project was known as Castle Peak. The area was part of a larger region which was leased from the Qing Empire to the British Empire in 1898 for 99 years as part of the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory. The colonial government, faced with overcrowding resulting from large numbers of immigrants from China as well as natural increase, embarked on various new towns projects to create large housing developments to house the rapidly growing population.

Construction of the new town started in 1966. In the next year, the government reclaiming 29 acre of land near an area known as "Tuen Mun San Hui" (). San Hui was considered as a market township of the area at that time, which was a market centre for the surrounding area. Further reclamation was carried out in Castle Peak Bay, among others, until the late 1960s. The government also levelled the hillside area to obtain land for the town during that period. J. M. Wigglesworth, a senior planning officer of the government, has stated that choosing coastal sites is partially due to land tenure rights in the New Territories. Thus the government preferred land reclamation.

In 1973, the new town project was renamed Tuen Mun New Town. Rumour has it that the town was renamed because Castle Peak was more famous for a psychiatric hospital which was named after the area.

The major construction works, such as land reclamation, underground drainage, electricity infrastructure, and roads were completed in 1974.

The first public housing estate of the new town was San Fat Estate. It was completed in 1971.

Geography

Tuen Mun New Town, as of 1971, was 20 miles by road and 15 miles by sea from Kowloon.

Design

The development model is constructed around a town centre. The town is also served by multiple lines of the Light Rail.

According to the early draft of the new town, the settlement was designed to have land allocated for industrial use, which would provide employment to residents, In 2019, some industrial buildings of the new town applied to be rezoned for commercial use. However, it was also reported that due to the opening of the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge, some industrial buildings were rented by logistic companies in 2018. A number of logistics companies also expressed interest in land leases near the River Trade Terminal in 2018.

The road infrastructure of the town to other areas of Hong Kong relies on Tuen Mun Road and Castle Peak Road, as well as roads to northern Yuen Long District. Until the opening of the West Rail in 2003, local residents suffered from traffic congestion on Tuen Mun Road and Castle Peak Road. However, as of 2019, the railway line also reached its capacity and the government had planned new road to connect the town to the CBD via the site of the Lantau Tomorrow Vision project. Tuen Mun–Chek Lap Kok Link was opened in 2020.

Tuen Mun Ferry Pier serves as the pier for the town to connect to Mainland China, and Macau, as well as local destinations such as Lantau Island. In the past it also had scheduled ferries to Hong Kong Island.

The boundary and land uses of the town are still regulated by Tuen Mun Outline Zoning Plan. The government still periodically updates the plan. The first plan was approved by Governor-in-Council in 1967. In 2017, the local council rejected the government's plan to convert some land from "government, institution and community" use or "open space" to residential.

Tuen Mun town centre

The town centre was designed to have public library, education centre, theatre, convention and exhibition hall, arts museum, as well as government building that connects to commercial buildings, which house supermarkets, banks and other shops that provide daily needs. In a history book edited by Lau Chi-pang () and Liu Shuyong (), they give a positive review on the town planning, which they describe the Tuen Mun town centre is the "centre of gravity" () of the town:

In 1971, the section of the town that encompassing the existing market town San Hui was considered as the most-valuable land for high-rise private residential use. News reports also consider residential blocks of the , Kam Wah Garden, Tuen Mun Town Plaza and are the four major residential estates of the town centre. In urban zoning, they were located at the aforementioned Area 11, as well as on a small strip of Area 37 of the Tuen Mun OZP.

Nowadays, near to the Tuen Mun railway station, are Tuen Mun Town Hall, Tuen Mun Public Library, Tuen Mun Clinic, Tuen Mun Government Offices, Tuen Mun Law Courts, Tuen Mun Park, as well as shopping centres such as V City, The Trend Plaza Shopping Arcade, Tuen Mun Town Plaza shopping centre, as well as pentahotel Tuen Mun, etc. Those public facilities were mostly located in Area 11 as well as Area 37, while the V City and its associated residential blocks, are located in Area 10. The railway station itself is located above the river, which divides Area 10 to Area 9.

Politics

Some constituencies of the Tuen Mun District Council serve the new town, although the boundaries of the constituencies differ from the boundaries of the urban planning OZP. The executive branch of the district-level government, the Tuen Mun District Office of the Home Affairs Department, is located on the second floor of Tuen Mun Government Offices, a building located within the new town at 1 Tuen Hi Road.

References

References

1. {{rp. 147 The history of settlement in [[Tuen Mun]] can be traced back 6,000 years.. link. 劉蜀永 [Liu Shuyong]. Joint Publishing ([[Sino United Publishing]]). (July 2012)
2. (4 June 1966)
3. link. Joint Publishing ([[Sino United Publishing]]). (July 2012). 黃 [Wong]. 君健 [Kwan-kin (Kenneth)]
4. (c. 1976). "Hong Kong's New Towns: Tuen Mun". New Territories Development Department.
5. There was little chance of flood at that time. The new town is situation in the valley between Castle Peak and [[Tai Lam]] hill {{sic}}{{rp|154}} (should be [[Kau Keng Shan]]). Before the development, it was a major fishing port with a land-based population of 22,500 people. Studies suggested that the area should be developed into a satellite city of 1 million population. As of 2011 census, whole Tuen Mun District, which covers Tuen Mun New Town and other urban and rural areas, had a population of 487,546 people.[https://web.archive.org/web/20120228005650/http://www.census2011.gov.hk/en/district-profiles.html]
6. link. (10 July 2019). Media Chinese International
7. link. (4 May 2018). Sing Tao News Corporation
8. Lam Ka-sing. (25 April 2018). "Tender sale of first logistics site in five years in Tuen Mun likely to fetch HK$2.56 billion". South China Morning Post.
9. Lam, Carrie. (2019). "Policy Address". Hong Kong Government.
10. Chan, Riley. (6 September 2017). "Tuen Mun rezoning thumbed down". Sing Tao News Corporation.
11. link. (9 February 2013)
12. Another private residential estate, Tuen Mun Centre ({{lang-zh. link. Hong Kong Economic Times Holdings
13. "Tuen Mun Station street map". MTR.
14. (28 November 2019). "Tuen Mun District". Home Affairs Department.