Introduction:
Discovery Bay (DB, Chinese: 愉景灣) is a mixed, primarily residential, development consisting of upmarket residential development and private and public recreational facilities in Hong Kong. It is situated on the north-eastern coast of Lantau Island in the New Territories. The development spans an area of 650 hectares (1,600 acres), and includes two bays, the Tai Pak Bay (大白灣) and Yi Pak Bay (二白灣). The 2011 census recorded 12,258 people living at DB;[1] the developers said there were around 18,000 residents in mid-2011[2] with a sizeable community of expatriates from over thirty countries. DB is located 2 km west of Hong Kong Disneyland Resort and approximately 12 km west from the nearest point on Hong Kong Island. DB currently (April 2009) consists of 14 residential development phases with properties ranging from garden houses to high-rise towers of up to 24 storeys. The development also features a 400-metre-long privately owned beach (accessible to the public but no lifeguards present), four private membership clubs including a golf club and a marina club and a public park (Siena Central Park). The absence of public recreational facilities is a bone of discontent with the residents especially in view of the fact that the developer has an outstanding obligation to provide 300,000 square metres of such facilities as part of the original plan.[3] Though DB is considered in Hong Kong to be a low-density development due to the amount of open spaces (as measured by the plot to development ratio of 0.12), DB is however the second most populous district (after the New Town of Tung Chung) on the sparsely populated Lantau Island. Pets are allowed in Discovery Bay. DB's origin can be traced to the establishment, in May 1973, of the Hong Kong Resort Company Limited (HKR), by the wealthy shipowner & shipping agent Edward Wong Wing-cheung, of Kennedy Road, Hong Kong, followed by years of planning and negotiation finally culminating in the Master Plan sealed in December 1975 between HKR and the Hong Kong government. By New Grant No. 6122 of 10 September 1976, HKR agreed to surrender title to 800 Hong Kong properties, in total amounting to over 6.6 million square feet of New Territories agricultural land and buildings, in exchange for ten times that area at Discovery Bay. The plan called for development, on Lot 385 at Tai Pak Wan, of "membership club houses and a leisure resort and associated facilities which shall include an hotel or hotels ... a cable-car system ... and a non-membership golf course ..." In addition, HKR handed over HK$61.5 million in exchange for the grant and undertook to spend no less than another HK$600 million on development (excluding site formation costs) within 10 years of the grant. Within months, however, Wong had got into great financial difficulty, personally facing a writ, filed in Hong Kong on 1 April 1977, by the Soviet-government controlled Moscow Narodny Bank Limited for return of US$7 million advanced in 1973 and, in the guise of his Panamanian bank holding company, Paclantic Financing Co., Inc., (HKR's majority shareholder) facing the same creditor demanding US$22.12 million in proceedings in Panama. Both the Chinese and British governments were concerned to prevent the property rights in the single largest piece of privately controlled land in Hong Kong falling into the hands of the Russian bank during times of deepening political uncertainty for Hong Kong, so the then Secretary for the New Territories, Sir David Akers-Jones, led the government's efforts to avert that forbidding prospect, steering HKR into the hands of the Beijing-friendly Cha Chi-ming. Having lost control of HKR and facing bankruptcy proceedings, Wong had long since left Hong Kong, in January 1977[4] while mooting the establishment of a Pacific Atlantic Bank of Miami and going into the casino business with the Anderson group of whom one Robert B Anderson, of One Rockefeller Plaza, had been a fellow director on the HKR board.[5] Anderson had been US Secretary of the Navy and of the Treasury, as well as Special Ambassador to Panama, but by the mid-1980s had sunk to running a phony bank and moneylaundering for drug traffickers, for which he was sentenced to imprisonment in 1987. The Cha family, up to then better known for its exploits running China Dyeing Works Ltd, an international textile group, responded to the opportunity and purchased HKR in May 1977. By 1979, all debts were paid off and work started on the reservoir and the core infrastructure but for a very different sort of project – essentially a residential community offering a relaxed lifestyle. Years later, after the handover, this decision was revisited in 2004 when it was discovered that Akers-Jones did not seek approval from the Executive Council (ExCo) for the deviation from the terms of the Land Grant. In a 2004 report by the government's Audit Commission, the Lands Department was severely criticized for allowing this to happen, particularly since Akers-Jones did not call on HKR under Cha to pay any additional land premium. After retiring from government, in 2000 Akers-Jones joined the board of Mingly Corporation, also controlled by Cha.[6] Unlike other large Hong Kong developments, everything in DB was built with private money, including roads, electricity and the water supply. Even the government-operated fire and police stations and the government-aided local primary school were built by the developer. In such developments, the government acts in the role as an approving and checking authority, with development proceeding under an official Master Plan, version 6.0a of which was released in 2003,[7] including the major extension in 2003 in Yi Pak Wan. DB was developed in phases and the developer, HKR, envisages that DB will eventually be home to 25,000 residents.[8] The following data applies as of April 2008: Community life centres on DB Plaza, a commercial hub containing a bus terminus, ferry pier, an open piazza, and a range of shops including a supermarket, specialty stores, medical and dental clinics, and a veterinary surgery.
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Discovery Bay (DB, Chinese: 愉景灣) is a mixed, primarily residential, development consisting of upmarket residential development and private and public recreational facilities in Hong Kong. It is situated on the north-eastern coast of Lantau Island in the New Territories. The development spans an area of 650 hectares (1,600 acres), and includes two bays, the Tai Pak Bay (大白灣) and Yi Pak Bay (二白灣). The 2011 census recorded 12,258 people living at DB;[1] the developers said there were around 18,000 residents in mid-2011[2] with a sizeable community of expatriates from over thirty countries. DB is located 2 km west of Hong Kong Disneyland Resort and approximately 12 km west from the nearest point on Hong Kong Island. DB currently (April 2009) consists of 14 residential development phases with properties ranging from garden houses to high-rise towers of up to 24 storeys. The development also features a 400-metre-long privately owned beach (accessible to the public but no lifeguards present), four private membership clubs including a golf club and a marina club and a public park (Siena Central Park). The absence of public recreational facilities is a bone of discontent with the residents especially in view of the fact that the developer has an outstanding obligation to provide 300,000 square metres of such facilities as part of the original plan.[3] Though DB is considered in Hong Kong to be a low-density development due to the amount of open spaces (as measured by the plot to development ratio of 0.12), DB is however the second most populous district (after the New Town of Tung Chung) on the sparsely populated Lantau Island. Pets are allowed in Discovery Bay. DB's origin can be traced to the establishment, in May 1973, of the Hong Kong Resort Company Limited (HKR), by the wealthy shipowner & shipping agent Edward Wong Wing-cheung, of Kennedy Road, Hong Kong, followed by years of planning and negotiation finally culminating in the Master Plan sealed in December 1975 between HKR and the Hong Kong government. By New Grant No. 6122 of 10 September 1976, HKR agreed to surrender title to 800 Hong Kong properties, in total amounting to over 6.6 million square feet of New Territories agricultural land and buildings, in exchange for ten times that area at Discovery Bay. The plan called for development, on Lot 385 at Tai Pak Wan, of "membership club houses and a leisure resort and associated facilities which shall include an hotel or hotels ... a cable-car system ... and a non-membership golf course ..." In addition, HKR handed over HK$61.5 million in exchange for the grant and undertook to spend no less than another HK$600 million on development (excluding site formation costs) within 10 years of the grant. Within months, however, Wong had got into great financial difficulty, personally facing a writ, filed in Hong Kong on 1 April 1977, by the Soviet-government controlled Moscow Narodny Bank Limited for return of US$7 million advanced in 1973 and, in the guise of his Panamanian bank holding company, Paclantic Financing Co., Inc., (HKR's majority shareholder) facing the same creditor demanding US$22.12 million in proceedings in Panama. Both the Chinese and British governments were concerned to prevent the property rights in the single largest piece of privately controlled land in Hong Kong falling into the hands of the Russian bank during times of deepening political uncertainty for Hong Kong, so the then Secretary for the New Territories, Sir David Akers-Jones, led the government's efforts to avert that forbidding prospect, steering HKR into the hands of the Beijing-friendly Cha Chi-ming. Having lost control of HKR and facing bankruptcy proceedings, Wong had long since left Hong Kong, in January 1977[4] while mooting the establishment of a Pacific Atlantic Bank of Miami and going into the casino business with the Anderson group of whom one Robert B Anderson, of One Rockefeller Plaza, had been a fellow director on the HKR board.[5] Anderson had been US Secretary of the Navy and of the Treasury, as well as Special Ambassador to Panama, but by the mid-1980s had sunk to running a phony bank and moneylaundering for drug traffickers, for which he was sentenced to imprisonment in 1987. The Cha family, up to then better known for its exploits running China Dyeing Works Ltd, an international textile group, responded to the opportunity and purchased HKR in May 1977. By 1979, all debts were paid off and work started on the reservoir and the core infrastructure but for a very different sort of project – essentially a residential community offering a relaxed lifestyle. Years later, after the handover, this decision was revisited in 2004 when it was discovered that Akers-Jones did not seek approval from the Executive Council (ExCo) for the deviation from the terms of the Land Grant. In a 2004 report by the government's Audit Commission, the Lands Department was severely criticized for allowing this to happen, particularly since Akers-Jones did not call on HKR under Cha to pay any additional land premium. After retiring from government, in 2000 Akers-Jones joined the board of Mingly Corporation, also controlled by Cha.[6] Unlike other large Hong Kong developments, everything in DB was built with private money, including roads, electricity and the water supply. Even the government-operated fire and police stations and the government-aided local primary school were built by the developer. In such developments, the government acts in the role as an approving and checking authority, with development proceeding under an official Master Plan, version 6.0a of which was released in 2003,[7] including the major extension in 2003 in Yi Pak Wan. DB was developed in phases and the developer, HKR, envisages that DB will eventually be home to 25,000 residents.[8] The following data applies as of April 2008: Community life centres on DB Plaza, a commercial hub containing a bus terminus, ferry pier, an open piazza, and a range of shops including a supermarket, specialty stores, medical and dental clinics, and a veterinary surgery.
No.6 subway
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