Place:Discovery Bay, Hong Kong, People's Republic of China

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Discovery Bay (DB) is a resort town on Lantau Island, Hong Kong. It consists of mixed, primarily residential, development, in particular upmarket residential development and private and public recreational facilities, including garden houses, low-, mid- and high-rise residential developments, a 27-hole golf course, an ice rink, a 262-berth marina, two clubhouses, the first private manmade beach in Hong Kong, international schools, two shopping malls and the largest oceanfront alfresco dining area in Hong Kong.

The 2016 census record 20,271 people living at DB; over 50% of them are non-Chinese and DB is a sizeable community of expatriates from over fifty 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.

As of April 2018, Discovery Bay consists of 15 residential development phases with properties ranging from garden houses to low-, mid- and high-rise. The development also features a 400-metre-long privately owned beach (accessible to the public), four private membership clubs including a golf club and a marina club, and a public park (Siena Central Park).

Discovery Bay is a key community in Lantau Island (after Tung Chung) and enjoys a very low plot ratio of 0.15. Pets are allowed in Discovery Bay.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

In May 1973, the Hong Kong Resort Company (HKR) was established by Edward Wong Wing-cheung, a Hong Kong merchant. Following two years of planning and negotiation, a 'Master Plan' was agreed in December 1975 between HKR and the Hong Kong government. By New Grant No. 6122 of 10 September 1976, HKR agreed 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 faced financial difficulty. The Soviet-government controlled Moscow Narodny Bank Limited filed a writ in Hong Kong on 1 April 1977 against Wong himself for return of US$7 million advanced in 1973, as well as against Wong's Panamanian bank holding company, Paclantic Financing Co., Inc. (which was HKR's majority shareholder), for US$22.12 million in proceedings in Panama. Both the Chinese and British governments were concerned to prevent the property rights to 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. Sir David Akers-Jones, then-Secretary for the New Territories, led the government's efforts to avert that prospect, steering HKR into the hands of Hong Kong-based Chinese industrialist Cha Chi-ming. It is suspected that Cha decided to bid for the project under the instruction of Liao Chengzhi, then director of China's Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office to avoid Soviet acquisition of Hong Kong land.

Having lost control of HKR and facing bankruptcy proceedings, Wong left Hong Kong in January 1977 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.

The Cha family, better known for running China Dyeing Works Ltd during the 1970s, an international textile group, 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. 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.

Unlike other large Hong Kong developments, everything in DB was built with private money, including roads, electricity and the water supply. The government-operated fire and police station, community hall and the government-aided primary school were also built by the developer. These developments have to be approved and checked by the government with the official Master Plan version 6.0a in 2003, including the major extension in 2003 in Yi Pak Wan.

Research Tips