Land reclamation was central to the Chinese city's economic growth for decades but shifting public opinion since the 1990s led to stringent legal rules that required projects to establish an "overriding public need".

Officials called those rules "restrictive" and proposed a bill last year to fast-track smaller projects, while also giving the city's leader more power over large-scale ones.

The bill will "enhance harbourfront areas for public enjoyment", the development bureau said, adding that the government had no plans for large-scale reclamation in Victoria Harbour.

Environmentalists had warned that the bill would allow the city's leader -- not the courts -- to have the final say over whether a project satisfied the "public need" test.

Speaking after the bill was passed on Wednesday, harbour protection advocate Paul Zimmerman said concerns over the city leader's expanded role have "not been really resolved".

"The protection of the harbour is not... embedded in the law as it was before," Zimmerman told AFP.

"It's a pity that the level of protection has been reduced."

Pro-Beijing lawmaker Bill Tang said during Wednesday's legislative session that attempts to "discredit the amendments" are "spreading false narratives".

Andrew Lam, another lawmaker, said: "As long as the public has reasonable grounds (to oppose reclamation), they can apply for judicial review at any time."

Harbour protection was one of Hong Kong's major activist causes in the decade following the former British colony's handover to China in 1997.

The city's top court ruled in a landmark case in 2004 that the harbour was "a special public asset and a natural heritage of Hong Kong people" that must be protected and preserved.

Beijing has cracked down on dissent in Hong Kong after huge and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in the finance hub in 2019, and opposition lawmakers have quit or been ousted.

The Society for Protection of the Harbour, a 30-year-old advocacy group, is expected to convene soon to decide whether to continue its work, according to Zimmerman.

"Now that the government has... reduced the safeguards that (the law) provides, the Society is considering (hanging) up its coat," he said.