Development Bureau criticised for not knowing land availability
Lack of government figures is 'unacceptable' amid controversy, housing specialist says
The Development Bureau came under fire yesterday for being unable to give details about how much of its vacant land was available for housing.
On Saturday, bureau chief Paul Chan Mo-po told a chaotic public forum that it had 2,100 hectares, of which 1,200 was designated for building village houses. But yesterday the bureau could not say exactly how much of this would be available for building flats. One source close to the bureau said the figure was less than 400 hectares.
The bureau also could not explain big discrepancies in stated figures for the total extent of residential sites across the city.
The lack of such information amid the controversy over the government's proposed new town developments that will displace 6,000 villagers in the New Territories was criticised by housing specialists yesterday.
Chan cited the figures to a rowdy audience in Sheung Shui on Saturday in an effort to show that the displacement of villages and farms for the three planned new towns near the border was needed for housing.
The vagueness was criticised as "unacceptable" by Dr Lawrence Poon Wing-cheung, a specialist in real estate at City University. "How can the government know to what extent it is short of land? It will be even harder for the government to convince the public that it must obtain more land from reclamation and removing farmland."