A 200 hectare site south of Yuen Long town earmarked for a housing development could yield tens of thousands of flats, but the transport infrastructure must be upgraded first, surveyors say.
The land, which includes storage sites, farmland and villages occupied by non-indigenous residents, was one of the areas highlighted in Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen's policy address last year as suitable for housing development.
The Civil Engineering and Development Department submitted a project profile to the Environmental Protection Department yesterday. In it, it said it would start a two-and-a-half year planning and engineering study this year to identify several options for building private and public housing on the site.
The study of the land, located along Kung Um Road and around Tong Yan San Tsuen, will include proposals for new roads, a drainage channel and a sewage system.
Surveyor Tony Chan Tung-ngok said about 85 per cent of the flat 200-hectare site would be available for buildings after space was reserved for internal roads and public utilities, such as electricity substations. If the remaining areas were all used to build flats, a plot ratio of three was adopted and no community facilities were included, the site could yield 91,000 homes of 600 square feet.
But fellow surveyor Pang Siu-kei has more reservations about the site's potential, saying the area would need a lot of transport improvements to be suitable for housing.