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Written by: Commentary Editing Room
2021-01-08 07:00
Last update date: 2021-01-08 07:00
The housing problem has plagued the people of Hong Kong for many years. The government launched the "Land Sharing Pilot Scheme" in May last year for more than half a year. On Wednesday (6th), the Secretary for Development, Wong Wai Lun, said in response to questions from Members that the land sharing office had not received it. To any formal application, it only means that there are about 10 projects with preliminary development plans involved in the preliminary exchanges, mainly in the New Territories, and individual projects involve thousands of units.
Developers reacted indifferently to the government's plans, indicating that the "land sharing" model of public-private partnerships is not a fundamental solution to the housing problem.
From the developer's response to this public-private partnership model, it is obvious that the plan itself cannot be sufficiently attractive.
However, even if the government succeeds in recruiting private organizations to "share" development through a plan, it lacks leadership and makes overall planning difficult, and secondly, it will inevitably lead to suspicion of collusion between the government and business, and ultimately cannot satisfy the business community or the public.
In October last year, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor responded to media questions about the plan. He stated that the developers were worried about the lengthy time for land premium disputes and lacked confidence in the current land premium arbitration mechanism. As of that time, only one small project could successfully complete the arbitration.
In addition, after the developers participate in the plan, the public and private floor areas will be allocated at a "seven to three ratio", and the plot ratio after the construction of community facilities and other infrastructure is also very limited, and it is naturally difficult to attract the interest of developers.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor mentioned in his 2018 policy address that he launched a pilot land sharing plan to develop agricultural land in a public-private partnership model.
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Questions about collusion between officials and businessmen still remain
Moreover, the "Land Sharing Pilot Project" failed to attract developers to participate in public-private cooperation. On the contrary, it also evoked many Hong Kong people's memories of collusion between government and business, and questioned the existence of interest transmission behind it.
Xu Shiren, the former Chief Secretary for Administration who was in charge of the Ma Wan Development Project, was accused of receiving payments from senior Sun Hung Kai Properties and leaking government information and strategies to the other party during the processing of the project.
The current Financial Secretary, Chen Maobo, launched the "New Territories Northeast Development Project" during his tenure as Director of the Development Bureau in 2013. However, his family was accused of hoarding 18,000 square feet of farmland in the area and receiving more than 10 million yuan in compensation. The incident involved a serious conflict of interest. But the road to promotion was unimpeded.
In any case, the lack of response to the plan among developers this time just caused the community and the government to reflect on the original purpose of finding land to build houses.
Since the benefits of developers are derived from the society, they certainly have their social responsibilities. However, in business, developers buy land and build houses for profit, and the government cannot expect developers to help solve social problems.
Housing construction is to solve the housing problem that has plagued the people of Hong Kong for many years. The government should not let the "shared land" be used as a side attack. Instead, it should focus on the core of the problem, face the vested interests of society head-on, and stop using land resumption and relocation. One type of tough measures promotes development.
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