The Urban Renewal Authority cannot afford to build only cheaper flats because it has to pay its own way under the government's new renewal strategy and needs revenue from luxury flats to stay in the black, Development Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said yesterday.
Responding to criticism of sky-high prices at the authority's Queen's Cube project in Wan Chai and to calls for it to build more affordable flats, Lam said the statutory body had its limitations.
'The self-financing role of the authority will be upheld under the revised renewal strategy,' she said. 'It needs revenue to compensate the loss suffered in other projects. I can't just give it a new order that would affect its financial ability.'
But she said luxurious elements would be left out of the first of the so-called 'flat-for-flat' projects at Kai Tak, to be built to house people displaced by redevelopment, so that it would be affordable.
The Queen's Cube project raised eyebrows when a 401 sq ft flat went on the market for almost HK$6 million, or HK$14,888 per sq ft.
Under the new strategy put up for a two-month public consultation yesterday, owners will have the option of taking cash compensation or buying a flat built by the authority.