The Task Force on Land Supply will study public feedback on whether to use fringe areas of country parks as a land supply option.
The task force discussed the issue at its fifth meeting today.
Chairman Stanley Wong said the task force noted country parks are invaluable assets of Hong Kong and any development must be done with caution.
"We had about 13 million visitors frequenting the various country parks, the 24 different country parks in Hong Kong, conducting a variety of different activities
"Other than the statutory process that we have to overcome in terms of environmental impact assessment, in terms of going through the Country & Marine Parks Board as well as going through the land use amendments at the Town Planning Board, we do believe that there is a certain threshold that we must uphold before we can proceed to consider utilising the fringe of the country parks.
"And this will include considering whether there are better alternatives in terms of using that particular piece of country park and at the same time is there any mitigation or compensation that we can do in terms of the impact on the ecology.
"So with these in mind, we will leave it to the public engagement and see how the community will perhaps support, or otherwise, conducting further studies if we are going to move this particular option forward," Mr Wong added.
