Development plan: Chief Secretary for Administration Henry Tang chairs the first board meeting of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority.

The West Kowloon Cultural District Authority will launch a multi-stage consultation exercise to engage the public in drawing up the cultural district development plan, Chief Secretary Henry Tang says.

Speaking after the authority's first board meeting this afternoon, Mr Tang said the authority will map out a development plan that lays out the whole district and sets apart land for functional and supporting facilities.

It will invite through open tender local and overseas experts to help the board draw up a development plan and take it through the statutory town planning process.

"We will first consult stakeholders in the arts and cultural sector and then propose three conceptual development options and engage the public to ascertain their preferred features of these options. Finally, we will propose a more detailed development plan for further public engagement."

The authority will also recruit an executive director to help the board push ahead with tasks in the coming months.  

Committees formed

At today's meeting, the board established six committees and appointed committee chairmen.

Paul Chan will chair the audit committee while Tsang Tak-sing will be the investment committee chairman. Sin Chung-kai and Ronald Arculli will chair the remuneration and development committees while the museum and performing art committees will be chaired by Victor Lo and Allan Zeman.

Mr Tang said the development, museum and performing art committees will soon co-opt members from the community with the reference expertise. They will bring different views and perspectives into the committees' deliberations and help forge a broad-based consensus on the development plan.