Prologue Journal

As a village waits to be swallowed by Hong Kong’s Northern Metropolis, once-defiant residents are unsure of their fate

• prologu5
• 01/30/202501/30/2025

Hong Kong Free Press

More than a decade ago, construction on an underground rail link connecting Hong Kong to mainland China began beneath Yau Tam Mei Tsuen, a village in the city’s northern New Territories. For some villagers, it was a warning that their homes would one day be ceded to further development. That day is drawing ever nearer.

Lo San-cheung came to Hong Kong from mainland China in 1957 at the age of 12 and moved into Yau Tam Mei Tsuen, a village in the city’s north. After almost seven decades in the village, he has about two years before he is evicted.

The Yau Tam Mei Tsuen development is one of the first – and one of many – developments under the government’s Northern Metropolis scheme. The infrastructure megaproject is set to transform 30,000 hectares of land along Hong Kong’s border, and uproot ways of life in the northern New Territories.

The village, which is just a 15-minute drive from the closest border control point, falls within an area earmarked for Hong Kong’s third medical school, a university town, and a residential hub spanning 127 hectares in total, part of a plan announced by Chief Executive John Lee during his third Policy Address last year.

Soon after Lee’s announcement last October, the government commenced a two-month public engagement exercise which came to a close on January 13. Submissions will be summarised in a report to be released in due course, according to the government, with the first villagers facing eviction in 2027.

Disruptive infrastructure

Like many other villagers of Yau Tam Mei Tsuen, Lo is no stranger to infrastructure works threatening to disrupt their way of life. In 2011, underground tunnelling works for the Express Rail Link caused the groundwater running underneath the village to run out, drying up farmers’ crops and villagers’ wells.

“No water meant no money,” Lo said in Cantonese as he strolled past an abandoned fish farm on a sunny January afternoon, cane in hand. Once populated with grass carp, the farm was an unkempt mass of plant matter when HKFP visited the village last Saturday.

See also: The Hong Kong fish farmers set to lose their way of life to the Northern Metropolis development

“The pig and chicken farmers, the rice farmers — all their wells dried up,” said Lo, who was already well into his sixties when he banded together with other mostly elderly villagers and activist groups to protest the tunnelling works in 2011.

The tunnelling works were a sign that it was just a matter of time before the government would take back the village, added Lo, who is now woken every morning by the low rumble of high-speed trains running between Hong Kong and the mainland. “That’s what everyone was thinking, for more than a decade,” he said.

For villager Siu Ming, who requested to use a pseudonym for fear of reprisals, the protests against the tunnelling works were an awakening.

“We didn’t know at the time that it was construction works underground causing the groundwater used by the farmers to run out. People from the Land Justice League helped the farmers with their submissions [to the government]… and helped contact lawmakers,” he said.

The now-inactive activist group once advocated for the democratisation of land development policy and actively protested against village redevelopment projects.

“Back then, we still had marches. It was through these actions that we learned about our rights… It was a revelation for me,” said Siu Ming. Now a community organiser more than a decade on, he teaches elderly villagers how to read planning documents and zoning plans like the League once did.

Siu Ming expects the development to proceed despite the opposition, pointing to the public consultation for the San Tin Technopole, a flagship tech and innovation hub under the Northern Metropolis scheme.

The consultation for the Technopole resulted in a 90 per cent opposition rate from some 1,600 submissions last summer, but despite the overwhelming opposition, the Town Planning Board has greenlit the project.

‘Why not go to space?’

On December 5, a thousand-odd villagers gathered in the heart of Yau Tam Mei to express their concerns about the project to officials. The dialogue was not required of the redevelopment’s progress; instead, it was put together at the request of villagers.

Hanging on the face of the village office building were banners emblazoned with slogans of defiance. “Swear to protect Yau Tam Mei, oppose the village’s destruction,” they read, as villager after villager took their turn to make their demands known to the government representatives on stage.

One villager who gave his name as Wong slammed the rehousing plan and asked why the government was still going ahead with the massive development when it was expecting a HK$100 billion deficit. Despite its current financial state, officials have said works for the Northern Metropolis will be prioritised.

Responding to Undersecretary for Development David Lam’s suggestion that villagers could preserve neighbourly relations by moving into the dedicated estate and become “upstairs and downstairs neighbours,” Wong said: “You want to develop upwards? Why not go to space?”

Siu Ming pointed to the Choi Yuen Tsuen development more than a decade ago as an example of a rehousing plan that allowed villagers to resettle on the same site, but he said he was not optimistic that the same would transpire for residents of Yau Tam Mei Tsuen.

With the megaproject swallowing up massive swathes of land in rural Hong Kong, Siu Ming worries that he might not be able to preserve – or even approximate – life in Yau Tam Mei Tsuen. The sheer scale of the megaproject means moving into a different village might not even be an option.

In an emailed response to HKFP, the Development Bureau said that site formation and infrastructure works affecting Yau Tam Mei would commence in 2027.

“In other words, affected villagers will be requested to depart by batches from 2027 at the earliest. However, the actual departure date will depend on various factors, including the progress and priorities of the public works projects to be taken forward by batches,” the bureau said.

“It was fast, really fast. The [planning procedures] are coming one after another,” Siu Ming said. As for where he might live, he said: “Maybe I’ll try Kam Tin.” The area is one of few in the New Territories that has not been tapped for development.

But he said it was more likely that he would move into a dedicated resettlement estate operated by the Housing Society, using the compensation from the government for a down payment, under resettlement policies laid out by Lam last month.

The resettlement unit will be one of 5,700 that the Development Bureau expects will be provided by 2027. According to the bureau, rehousing estates under construction in the Northern Metropolis are located in the Hung Shui Kiu/Ha Tsuen New Development Area (NDA), Pak Wo Road in Fanling, and the Kwu Tung North NDA.

Means-tested households will be eligible for an ex-gratia allowance up to a maximum of HK$1.2 million, but barred from applying for public housing for two years, Lam told villagers last month.

Agricultural losses

Among the thousand-odd people at the village square last month was former land justice activist Ng Cheuk-hang – attending not as a villager but as a farmer working in Yau Tam Mei Tsuen. Once a member of the Land Justice League, Ng is now counting down the days until he has to surrender the rice farm he works on.

Ng, who asked whether the authorities would provide agricultural land rehabilitation measures, was told that HK$1,070 compensation would be offered for every square foot of agricultural land that the government reclaimed. Farming operations could also be moved to agricultural parks under the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department, undersecretary Lam said.

Despite the village’s defiant past, some have come to terms with their impending evictions.

“Now that the government has made its decision, there isn’t much we can do,” said 86-year-old Lau as she plucked knobs of ginger from her neatly tended garden. “Sure, development is a good thing, but they can still compromise with us.”

“It’s rotten. Can’t use it,” she said with a sigh, swinging a garden hoe with vigour uncharacteristic of an octogenarian, careful not to hit her two cats — a ginger and a calico.

When asked what she planned to do when the eviction deadline arrives, she simply said: “I’ll take what I can get.”

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