The Housing Bureau recently announced the latest four site selections for "Simple Public Housing".
In addition to the Tuen Mun Area 3A, Tuen Mun Area 54, Yuen Long Yau Pok Road and Sheung Shui Liantang Mei disclosed in December, the eight sites for "simple public housing" have been fully disclosed.
The bureau has revised the previous one-off appropriation method and divided the project into two applications for appropriation. The first batch of construction projects is Kai Tak World Games Road, Ngau Tau Kok Choi Hing Road, Tuen Mun Area 3A and Yuen Long Yau Pok Road, a total of 17,000 Units, the construction cost is about 14.86 billion yuan.
What is the area of "simple public housing"?
How much does it cost?
Eight sites are expected to build about 30,000 units, seven of which are one- to two-person units with an area of 13 square meters (140 square feet), two are three- to four-person units with an area of 25 square meters (269 square feet), and one is 31 square meters meters (334 square feet) for four to five-person units, with a total cost of 25.99 billion yuan.
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Private land in Yuen Long and Sheung Shui has luxury housing potential
Among them, the land on Yau Pok Road in Yuen Long is held by Sun Hung Kai Properties, with an area of about 8.9 hectares, adjacent to Fairview Garden.
At least in 2015 and last year, real estate developers broke through and rezoned residential buildings, but they still maintain recreational use.
Another piece of land that is also privately owned is the second batch of Liantangwei land in Sheung Shui, with an area of about 2.9 hectares. It is located between Xinjing Garden and Meyer Garden, and overlooks Fanling Golf Course in the distance.
New World Development, which it holds, also tried to apply for residential land rezoning, but failed. The land is currently for agricultural use.
Both sites are also associated with luxury housing projects, and their planning application history also reflects the developer's judgment that they have the potential to develop luxury housing.
However, the traffic conditions in the relevant location are not perfect, and the nearby supporting facilities are not sufficient, so it is worth paying attention to for future occupants.
With the finalization of the "simple public housing" project, owners of adjacent luxury houses such as Fairview Garden and Meyer Park may worry about affecting the price of their properties.
Xiaolan and Chaiwan are located in coastal areas
Among the remaining six pieces of land held by the government, Sheung On Street / Sheung Ping Street in Chai Wan is an open space of about 0.9 hectares between Chai Wan Industrial City and the campus of Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong Kong. It is currently used as a short-term leased car park. A pet park that just broke ground on another transitional housing project nearby.
The land for Siu Lam Le mainly includes the land for the former desalination plant that has been designated as a comprehensive development area, but part of the area will be extended to the coastal open space.
These two "simple public housing" are believed to be able to enjoy sea views after completion, but the Chai Wan land is actually a cargo loading and unloading area, and there are car factories and industrial areas nearby, so the views may not be ideal, and may even be affected. More noise and air pollution effects.
The land of Xiaolan undoubtedly has a landscape that is no less than that of luxury houses such as Langtao Bay and Tingtao Village on both sides, but the traffic conditions are relatively "isolated".
Some locations are adjacent to existing public housing
Other sites are adjacent to public housing estates.
Except that the land on Sheung On Street/Sheung Ping Street in Chai Wan is only one street away from Tsui Wan Village, the land in Tuen Mun Area 54, which covers an area of about 2.6 hectares and is located next to Yan Po Road, is also near Jing Tin Estate. The land was originally undergoing leveling works To build schools and gymnasiums.
The land area of Choi Hing Road in Ngau Tau Kok is about 1.1 hectares. It was originally used as a parking lot at the school site between Choi Tak Estate and Choi Wan Estate.
These sites will directly benefit from the original supporting facilities of the public housing estates. For example, the Yanbao Road site is located directly next to the bus terminus of Jingtian Village, and the Choi Hing Road site is used by Caritas Le Yan School, St. Joseph's English Secondary School, Surrounded by school buildings such as Shengyan Middle School.
Even so, the lot concerned was originally intended to provide more facilities for housing estate residents, but now it is instead used to build "simple public housing", which to some extent also reduces the existing benefits of residents and increases the pressure on the community.
Kai Tak Tuen Mun project has convenient transportation
Among the eight selected sites, the Kai Tak World Games Road site with an area of about 5.7 hectares must be the one with the most convenient traffic conditions.
It includes areas currently planned for comprehensive development, open space and areas designated as "uses related to the arts and performing arts". It is only a few minutes' walk from MTR Kai Tak Station.
Area 3A, Tuen Mun, with an area of about 0.8 hectares, leads to the Tsing Chung Light Rail Station as soon as it exits. At Siu Hong Station, you can transfer to the Tuen Ma Line of the MTR. The traffic conditions are also excellent.
However, Kai Tak's site selection has caused dissatisfaction among neighboring owners and residents, and even suspects that the government plans to change the positioning of Kai Tak's core business district.
Even the small piece of land in Area 3A in Tuen Mun was originally expected to be used for the long-term development of a district health center.
Looking at it from another perspective, the "simple public housing" on these sites may also face additional pressure when reviewing whether they will survive or not in the future.
Similar available land or more
The long-term planning of six of the eight projects does not include housing construction, and only two sites in Kai Tak and Siu Lam involve part of the land for the comprehensive development area.
Although this means that "simple public housing" will not affect the original work of finding land for housing construction, it also means that some vacant government land has not been fully utilized and has the potential to be used to build "simple public housing" as an emergency.
The Lands Department revealed the year before last that the director, Lai Chi-wah, said that the department managed 1,283 unleased vacant government land in 2020, with a total area of about 322 hectares, including 59.9 hectares in Outlying Islands, 48 hectares in Yuen Long, and 43.6 hectares in the West and South Districts of Hong Kong Island. hectares, 40.6 hectares in Kwai Tsing, Tsuen Wan, 37.5 hectares in Tuen Mun, 29.7 hectares in North District, etc.
This time, the six pieces of government land for "simple public housing" only occupy about ten hectares. It is inferred that the government can find more suitable land.
As for the part of "simple public housing" involving private land, it can also be seen that as long as the government cooperates or approves it, the stock land of major developers should be released for housing construction.
Earlier, the market estimated that New World, New World, Henderson, and Cheung Kong collectively own thousands of hectares of farmland reserves in the New Territories, and some developers have already lent out some plots of land for "transitional housing" in recent years. It remains to be seen how much interest there will be in the subsequent development of "simple public housing".
However, the government document only states that "private developers are willing to provide some of the land that has not been implemented for free." However, the specific form is whether the private developer will completely withdraw from the ownership, or will the land be returned to the developer after the project is completed?
The public knows little about how these two pieces of land will be handed over to the government to build "simple public housing". Officials should explain the relevant arrangements and study whether this practice can be changed into a regular mechanism to prevent more land from being left idle in the hands of developers. develop.
In any case, this "simple public housing" project can quickly find a site, which has shown to a certain extent that Hong Kong itself may not be completely short of land, but the government's efficiency in using land has room for improvement, such as the former desalination plant in Siu Lam The land has not been approved for development for a long time since it was converted into a comprehensive development area in 1994. The remaining sites have been idle for a long time, construction is slow, or short-term leases are used as parking lots.
It seems that in addition to making and finding land, how to effectively use land is also an issue worthy of social attention.
Simple public housing costs a lot of money. Speed and efficiency must be improved. Simple public housing cannot be a copy of transitional housing. Simple public housing is just a stopgap.
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