Proper planning needed for 85sqkm sea area, experts say

Eduardo Tavares da Silva (left) and Thomas Daniell (center)

The MSAR government has not fully revealed its plans for construction projects within the 85 square kilometer sea area near Macau, following Beijing’s grant of rights to Macau to manage activities in that area.

Recently, authorities proposed that the area would not be used for any gaming activity. An expert has expressed hope that this prohibition will be honored.

Thomas Daniell, a professor at Kyoto University, and formerly the Head of Architecture and Design at the University of St. Joseph, was in the region this weekend to give a talk titled “Unbuilt Macau.”

In the public talk, Daniell discussed the city’s master plan prior to the handover of the city to China in 1999, as well as its history.

Speaking to the Times, Daniell expressed his hope that the MSAR will be true to its word regarding the exclusion of gaming activities in the area.

“That’s great to be given the freedom to use that water but as a standard, it still requires approval from Beijing in terms of what’s actually done there. So more freedom is always a good thing,” he said.

“The history shows that [the MSAR] often say something like that and finally, of course casinos appear. But who knows? Perhaps now they will be true to their word and there will really be no new gaming developments,” Daniell added.

Echoing the same sentiments was Eduardo Tavares da Silva, a civil engineer who was involved in several urban projects in the region in the early 1980s. Given the chance to comment, Tavares da Silva suggested that the densely populated city should already consider its plans for the 85 square kilometer area, emphasizing the importance of creating a space for schoolchildren.

“We can build a lot in the area. A new education town for instance. […] These children need fresh air [and] playgrounds so let’s make an education town where we all the schools [are placed],” he suggested.

Tavares da Silva hinted that many schools in the region are concentrated in the center of town, sometimes even in the vicinity of old buildings – a precarious situation unsuitable for schoolchildren.

Meanwhile, when questioned by the Times as to whether the city is progressing only for the benefit of high-income level residents, the expert noted that the city could learn from other regions, including Singapore, when it comes to good public housing built for levels of all income.

“I think it’s planning and population planning. What kind of population do we need? How can Macau cope with it?” Tavares da Silva questioned. 

The veteran engineer also proposed that proper planning for Areia Preta is needed, as residential buildings in the area are already too old and crowded.

He proposed temporarily rehousing one block of families in Seac Pai Van and rebuilding that block.  This would allow those families to move back into the same area so they do not break their family or friendship links.

“And with that, maybe we can create more space for another block and then the whole area would be rehoused in these two or three blocks,” he explained.

Furthermore, Eduardo Tavares da Silva is an advocate of transforming Macau into a walkable city, dismissing the idea that it is currently walkable due to the immense foot and vehicle traffic in the city center.

“[The] San Ma Lo area needs to be carefully preserved [in] character because that’s the old town. I myself proposed that cars should be [prohibited] in Almeida Ribeiro because when we did the planning for that the area, I took the cars away from the square because people in the square are being squeezed,” he said.

The engineer also suggested that the city should have more ‘walkalators’ to provide a more attractive alternative to using private vehicles.

“So [if] we have so many rolling carpets [walkalators], we don’t need so many cars, we don’t need all the motorbikes coming to the center of town because they can come [walk] easily,” he said. More specifically, on the peninsula, he envisages a route made of walkalators linking Areia Preta to downtown Macau.

Although there are escalators leading to the public hospital and to the Taipa Houses Museum, the expert suggested that the city needs many more, particularly in Seac Pai Van area leading to A Ma Cultural Village and going downhill to the beach.

“Everything is possible. There is MOP500 billion cash waiting for all the possibilities,” Tavares da Silva jested.