Concrete Analysis | Hong Kong government must consider all possible options to address long-term land supply

The Hong Kong government recently accepted the recommendations proposed by the Task Force on Land Supply, providing eight options and strategy, which it considers worthy of further studies and implementation.

These options – three short-to-medium term and five medium-to-long term – can provide 3,225 hectares of land in total. The former includes developing brownfield sites, tapping into private agricultural land reserves in the New Territories and alternative uses of sites under private recreational leases. More than 300 hectares will be derived from implementation of these three options, which will be almost equal to that of Kai Tak Development Area.

Given the current issue of insufficient land supply, I support the government’s decision to accept all the options raised by the task force, and beyond that, I urge the government to adopt a multipronged approach and consider any option that can increase land supply. If all the land covered in the three short-to-medium term options can be utilised for residential use, with a plot ratio of three and an average flat size of 500 square feet, almost 200,000 residential units can be provided.

In fact, it has long been the government’s intention that developers release their agricultural land reserves in the New Territories for development of both public and private housing via public-private partnership.

Therefore, as the Task Force identified public-private partnership approach to unlock the development potential of private agricultural land as one of the priority options, the government should consider accepting the recommendation.