Gov’t to finish leisure land projects this year

Sports and leisure facilities, playgrounds, restaurants, cafes, and garden areas; these are just some of the proposed plans that will go ahead, as announced by the government during this year’s Policy Address.
Some of the projects, which were announced at the Legislative Assembly (AL) by the Secretary for Administration and Justice, André Cheong on April 24, have already started development and will be concluded before the year ends.
One of the most ambitious projects is located at Macau’s seafront. This project promises to reshape the whole coastal area from the Science Center to Barra.
Works on the project started on May 15 and the first phase is expected to last 208 days, that is, until December 9. The government also announced that it will be investing some 60 million patacas in this project and aims to create some 200 jobs.
According to the Policy Address, a similar project will also begin in due course at Hac Sa Beach in Coloane after the government’s retrieval of several land plots in that area.
In a statement, the Municipal Affairs Bureau (IAM) said that the ongoing construction works in the first phase of the coastal project between the Science Center and the Statue of Goddess Kun Iam in NAPE came in response to the community calling for more recreational and leisure areas to be built along coastal areas.
“IAM will build, in a phased manner, a green corridor on the south bank of Macau, connecting the Science Center to Goddess Kun Iam and Barra, providing a diversified coastal leisure space and building a healthy city for the people of Macau,” the statement says.
In this first phase, the project spans an area of 15,000 square meters from the Science Center to the Statue of Goddess Kun Iam and will include, among other infrastructure, a children’s playground, a walking/jogging track, esplanade, and multisport fields, physical exercise equipment, a gate-ball field, and a skating rink.
Preparations to build a cycling path linking this area to Barra will begin in the first phase, and will subsequently be built in the second phase.
The IAM also noted that the works under development are being done according to the government policy of “work instead of subsidies,” started by Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng, whose goal is to create more jobs and business opportunities for people and private companies instead of promoting government subsidies.
Several other projects moving forward are included in the same package but are of much smaller scale. They include the reconstruction of the Sai Van Lake pedestrian area that started early this month and is expected to finish by the end of November, and the renovation of Chunambeiro Park which began in early June and should reach completion before the end of September.
As for the “large-scale leisure complex” that will be created at Hac Sa Beach, the plan states that the whole area, including the existing facilities for picnic, playgrounds and the swimming pool, will be upgraded giving way to new sports and recreational spaces, as well as significant improvements made to the camping site and horticulture area.
The many projects under Cheong’s purview aim to meet the call for more quality spaces in Macau to “fulfill the demands of Macau as a World Center of Tourism and Leisure,” the Secretary said at the AL during the Policy Address discussion.
At the time, Cheong also mentioned that those projects include some of the idle land retrieved in the past few years by the government to put them to good use for the population.
As another example, the Secretary mentioned four land plots reclaimed by the government at Doca do Lam Mau where the government now proposes to build sports fields, physical exercise areas, and playgrounds on an area of around 3,700 square meters.