Developers snub sites on land sales application list
Almost a third of sites for which government is seeking bids have been available for more than a year; only two are suitable for high-rises
Close to a third of the sites the government is offering to sell to developers have gone unsold for up to five years despite its push to meet rising demand for flats, Lands Department figures show.
A government housing adviser says the administration should designate "unwanted" sites for public housing, but a real estate academic said the problem highlighted the lack of high-quality development sites and the unpopularity of the land-sales application system.
Thirteen of the 41 sites on the application list for land sales have been on offer for more than a year, and eight of these have been on the list for between two and five years.
Of the sites, eight are for flats - though high-rises can be built on only two, both in Ho Man Tin; the others are for low-rises of fewer than six storeys, and are in Sha Tin and Tuen Mun.
Two other sites are for hotels and three for commercial developments.
Twelve of the sites are less than a hectare in size; the other, a 2.4 hectare site in Ho Man Tin, has been on the list for a year. The site, in Sheung Lok Street, has a maximum permissible floor area of more than one million square feet - enough for at least 1,500 medium-sized flats.