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A challenge on the home front

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Chief Executive-designate Tung Chee-hwa must have the will to crack several taxing issues to boost Hong Kong's land supply if his pledge to relieve the territory's housing problem can have any chance of succeeding.

Hong Kong is not short of land. The shortage is of developable land whose supply is blocked by a number of hurdles which the administration is loathe to remove.

At present, the Government balks at developing large stretches of privately-owned land of mixed use in the New Territories for fear of running into resumption difficulties.

It has also refrained from reviewing the so-called 'small house' policy under which precious land is given to male descendants of indigenous residents of the New Territories to build free-standing three-storey houses - a terrible waste of land.

In the urban areas, archaic property ownership laws have allowed minority and absentee owners to bar majority owners of multi-storey buildings from redeveloping run-down premises.

Iris Tam Siu-ying, president of the Hong Kong Institute of Town Planners, believes these issues must be resolved to meet an increasing demand for accommodation from people and business.

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