The Housing Department will rebuild the 37-year-old Pak Tin Estate in Sham Shui Po next year, marking a new redevelopment policy for public-rental homes that gives priority to sites that can yield extra flats.
The project will yield 5,650 flats, a net increase of about 2,150, as the plot ratio - the total floor area of building construction permitted - will be raised from about four times the site area to more than six times the area.
The approach is a departure from the past policy of razing public-rental housing blocks only when they become too costly to repair.
A source familiar with the project admitted the estate's eight blocks, built between 1975 and 1979, were still structurally safe. Under the plan, they would be demolished and rebuilt.
'The repair cost is actually low. But the additional number of flats the project can yield is considerable,' she said. 'It will become a guiding principle in the future redevelopment policy, which is to take into account the potential for increasing the number of flats, as well as considering the state of repair.'
Pak Tin will be the first estate to be redeveloped under a study by the Housing Department in 2009, which covers six other old estates.