My Lamma Forums

[Marc Antony]

Target date: Nov 2009 to complete the interior design and fitting, then work on the outside will continue and be completed next year. (Taken from the home page article, What's New at the Lammarina.)

I'll believe it when it happens, but given the rate of progress so far this forecast is hard to believe - and I sincerely hope it remains a home for the birds and bees for years to come. I wonder how much they're thinking of renting them for?...and those target sale prices seem as ludicrous as ever. I still can't see why anyone (or any company) with that sort of money would want to come and slum it on Lamma, when for a similar outlay they could find something more, er, mainstream.

[Lamma-Gung]

Well, I've just been reporting what they all told me during the site visit. I've expressed my doubts several times, but they sounded serious about the dates this time.

There are so many people working in different houses at the same time right now and the key people were all present as well, from architect to project managers, foreman and over a dozen workers actually working on the interior decorations, putting in railings, kitchens, bathrooms, they all seem to working towards an actual deadline. Walking by frequently myself, I didn't notice all the activity going on inside the houses.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get permission to publish all the free-access photos they allowed me to take, otherwise you'd see that there's a lot of the work done already and a hive of activity right now.

The market potential of selling and renting them at these prices or even at far lower prices, remains very doubtful, but it's their business, their land and they're entitled to run it within govt. rules and regulations. Anyway, no major impact on Lamma property is to be expected for years to come.

More worrisome, IMHO, is that "Better than Discovery Bay!" development, potentially changing the nature and environment of South Lamma forever, if it'll ever happen in some form, but probably not for many years...

But I'd love to see that Environmental Impact Assessment report! It's a public document, so it'll be easily findable, but very unlikely to be completed already. These things take years, like the EIA for HK Electric's planned windfarm 4km South of Lamma still being in progress after several years already. CLP leapfrogged them and recently got their EIA for their windfarm off Sai Kung completed.

Anyway, the planned hotel developments in Sok Kwu Wan and Mo Tat Wan will be happening first, but even they are on a pending-indefinitely waiting list for now, awaiting the completion of the Sewage Treatment Works in Sok Kwu Wan and Mo Tat Wan first. No need for undue worry....

[Alan]

Combining posts:

[poilkoop]

Marijuana, Opium ., Qualudes??? What is it.

Just wondering how you get from 2000 -2500 a sq ft for expensive lamma housing to 8000 a sq ft..

And clearly your average executive working in flash offices in Central wants to traipse all the way to Aberdeen to catch a ferry. Why bother with a nice flat in midlevels.

The beach sucks there anyway.

[foreign body]

The layout of these units is really bad. I visited them (without permission) and cannot imagine anyone paying a premium to live in flats that don't guarantee much privacy, have rooms with tiny windows on each side (where do you place your furniture?) and balconies that are smaller than your standard balcony in a village house. Bathrooms are also tiny ( i saw a bathtub that was perfect for a child, but anybody taller than 1,20 m would not be able to use it. If the Jacuzzis are scrapped, you are left with these miniature bathtubs.

It looks good from a distance, but when you take a closer look you realise that it's done cheaply. People who are used to high standards would not move to this development, and those who are not looking for high standards would not pay the asking price.

Somebody should take Bobby to Sea Ranch for an eye opening tour.

[Marc Antony]

Agree the design is/was suspect - seems they have had to redo quite a few things - e.g. they apparently forgot to include basic drainage from the upper floors, which became badly flooded a couple of years ago leading to substantial repair work. More recently they've been tinkering with rooftops (originally used walls rather than railings, meaning an obstructed sea view - and this still not fixed in most cases). The huge west-facing front windows in the larger properties will allow for a splendid prospect, but will also admit vast amounts of sunlight. They're also going to get hit by a lot of salty air, which I imagine will cause some hassle too. Fair play to them for lots of trees and decent landscaping, but quite a few have died, for a variety of reasons (some were left high and dry too long before planting), and have had to be replaced. Could be a tricky sell for the estate agents ... if they ever get there.

Btw LG, the older photo of the big cotton tree in your editorial - I took that in mid April last year, which probably explains the shortage of leaves. Still, they have put some effort in trying to keep it going, and it seems to be doing OK, though it came into leaf much later than the other cotton trees this year and still has fruit hanging, whereas its peers lost theirs long ago.

[Marc Antony]

So ... how's it going at Lammarina, you might be wondering? Looks like not that much has changed since we mulled this topic last summer. Occasional bangs and drilling noises as one passes the site, and still a motley crew of labourers visiting for their daily mahjong, but er ... that's about it.

Of course, this is great news for the birds and bugs that nested in nooks and crannies of Lammarina last year - they'll soon be back!

[foreign body]

one wonders how he made his money, given that he seems so short of business acumen.
Lammarina in Tannery beach is a disaster...does anybody know how many flats he actually managed to sell?
The building standards are poor, the layout of the flats i visited is worse than that of any typical village house, which speaks volumes. Some of balconies at the back are just wide enough to stand and smoke a cigarette....and all those small windows would make it impossible to fit a wardrobe in the bedroom, you would have to split it into very small cabinets.
The complex looks good from a distance, but if you take a closer look all the flaws become obvious.

[Marc Antony]

Lammarina must serve another purpose besides providing a place for down-and-out workmen to play mahjong, but I still haven't discovered what it is.

Assuming that Lammarina will be finished one day, perhaps the developer (is it the same outfit?) needs another mysterious project ...

[Lamma-Gung]

Living Lamma's Chairwoman Laura tried to ask the Lammarina developer these questions during the RTHK interview which they didn't attend. I've forwarded them by email and got these replies within a few hours:

Q 1: "GREEN LIVING" in Lamma-1:
The project [Lamma-1] is described as aimed to those who like "green living" and yet the Lamma-1 in Nga Kau Wan has been built without any consideration for "green living", it seems? There is no double glazing and the flats are poorly insulated, requiring a large amount of electricity to cool them in the summer and heat them in winter. What makes these houses "greener" than any other standard village house in the New Territories?

A: Serious consideration has been taken into consideration for ‘green living’ when designing the houses in Nga Kau Wan. The windows facing the west are all double glazing panes. The houses are designed with windows on all sides allowing sufficient influx of fresh air from one side to the other side. We anticipate normal air-conditioning will suffice.

Q 2: Commercial viability of Lamma-1 and The Baroque:
Given the continuous degradation of the environment, (rubbish being dumped everywhere, landfilling activities and a total lack of planning) what makes you think that high-income families would consider living on Lamma, instead of Discovery Bay, which is manicured, landscaped and has doctors available 24/7, or similar developments in Sai Kung, where road access is provided?

A: During construction stages of any construction projects, undeniably there are bound to be residual building materials and rubbish for disposal. For our Lamma-1 project, our contractors have been instructed to remove and dump the residual building materials and rubbish properly; not causing any adverse impact to the environment and/or interference for the neighbourhood. This instruction has always been closely adhered to by the contractors. Similar measures will be undertaken for the other projects.

We experienced some delays in the progress of the Lamma-1 project. The delay stemmed from our further work on green living and preservation of the environment. The project is not far from completion now.

---

I've also just been invited for another personal tour through the Lammarina complex early next week. Please let me know any more question you'll surely have and I'll ask them.

I've also been promised a first sit-down interview with the tycoon behind all their Lamma projects, Bobby Li, sometime after Easter, even letting me have a closer look at the architectural drawings of their other Lamma projects in South Lamma. So far I've only seen the plans for the Lammarina, years ago. They hope to "be able to illustrate that our design concepts really take care of the lifestyle, natural and social environment of the local community.
We'll see...

[Lamma-Gung]

Interview with Bobby Li yesterday in their office in Causeway Bay. First results:

He's verbally agreed to a public tour of the Lammarina development on Tannery Beach for anybody interested as soon as the interior decoration will be completed and the scaffolding removed, tentatively mid-May. Further details to follow soon.

They've also promised to reply to questions from Lammaites. Post them here (some of the people in the developer's office actually follow this forum) or email me to forward the questions.

[Marc Antony]

[Lamma-Gung]

I've added the "tentatively" myself, as there have been too many delays to fix a date, I think. But the guided tour WILL happen, I'm pretty sure of that and I'll follow up on this regularly.

No sales yet, only rents of whole houses initially. They've still got to appoint a management company to handle the renting out and management of the entire complex, so the rents are not fixed at all yet. The 3 types of 11 houses are also of very different sizes, up to 3,000sqft. But they'll definitely be the highest rents on Lamma, maybe something like double of renting an entire recently built standard Village House on average, I'd guess from my last conversations with them.

As they bought the land at the top of the property market in 1997 for $64 million in public auction, making any profit might be very difficult anyway. They'll definitely wait for another big upswing in the HK property market before they'd ever consider selling, I think.

[Marc Antony]