Urban Renewal Authority told to make smaller and cheaper flats
The Urban Renewal Authority should be required to provide a certain number of small and cheaper flats in its redevelopment projects, surveyors have proposed.
David Tse Kin-wah, chairman of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors' task force on urban-renewal strategy, said redevelopment projects were delivering mostly luxury flats, adding that it was not the right direction for the authority.
'Urban renewal should not deliver just luxury flats. It should be diversified to cater to different income groups,' he said.
Tse cited as an example The Masterpiece, a Tsim Sha Tsui project delivered by New World Development and the authority, in which one flat sold for more than HK$30,000 per square foot in September.
He said the government could make it a condition in the land lease that a number of small flats, say 300 to 400 sq ft each, be built.
'This would also make it more affordable for original residents to return to the redevelopment if they so wish.'
Tse said a key issue of the current review of urban-renewal strategy was whether the authority should remain self-financing.
He suggested that this should end because it forced the authority to rebuild with a density high enough to make income cover the cost of land acquisition. 'The self-financing obligation has also resulted in the fact that the authority does not cover areas that have little potential - the planned plot ratio is not high enough to avoid making a loss - although those are very poor living conditions.'
The authority would then need more public funding to execute these less profit-making projects, and also heritage conservation work.
Tse said his organisation would meet Development Bureau officials and the authority management early next month to present its proposals.
The review of urban-renewal strategy, launched in July last year and aiming to get the community to discuss various issues, ends in April.
