Commercial and residential sites in the proposed West Kowloon cultural district will be sold to pay for an arts component in an attempt to prevent a recurrence of the controversy, a panel has recommended.

This may breathe new life into a project that ran into a firestorm of public anger, forcing a government climbdown last year.

The West Kowloon Consultative Committee, headed by Chief Secretary Rafael Hui Si-yan, has recommended that residential and commercial sites be offloaded through government land sales and that arts and cultural facilities be left in government hands.

The consultative panel was appointed to review the 40-hectare cultural hub after it was shelved amid criticism that it is a property project being palmed off on property heavyweights.

An authority will be set up to manage the cultural facilities and amenities with a HK$20 billion injection from the government, compared with the HK$30 billion the government originally proposed developers pay up front, Sing Tao Daily, sister newspaper of The Standard, has learned.

The committee will submit a comprehensive report to Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen shortly, sources said.

Details are expected to be announced in the second half.

Having attracted heavy condemnation from various quarters since its inception, the arts hub stirred deep suspicions as a result of the single-developer approach adopted by the government, a huge transparent canopy proposed for more than half the reclaimed site and numerous other issues.

But the latest proposal may take some of the heat off the project.

The government can use the expected land sales revenue of about HK$20 billion to develop, operate and manage the cultural component of the project on its own.

"The government can further inject capital if necessary as the management authority is not a self-financing body," sources told Sing Tao.

The cost of building and operating the amenities will be significantly reduced by abandoning the idea of a huge transparent canopy and building one "must-visit mega museum," on the site, instead of four separate museums as had been suggested in the original plan, the sources added.