Green sites earmarked for homes 'full of trees', environmental group says

About 60 per cent of the green-belt sites identified by the government for rezoning to build flats are covered by trees, a green group says, despite the administration's claim that the sites are "devegetated".

The government plans to convert about 50 plots of green-belt land - sites left vacant to mark the boundary between the city and the countryside - as part of a huge drive to build 470,000 public and private flats in the next decade.

But environmental campaign group Green Sense says its research has shown that at least 30 of the sites identified - including land in Tai Po, Southern District and Tuen Mun - are "full of trees" despite government claims that the sites chosen are "devegetated" or "deserted".

It says rezoning could lead to the felling of many hectares of trees and has vowed to fight the plan. It urged the government to scrap the rezoning, proposed in January by Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying in his policy address.

"I would say there are forests," Green Sense president Roy Tam Hoi-pong said of the sites earmarked for homes. "The Leung administration has been economical with the truth when it says that the plan is to develop devegetated sites.

"The government likes to make use of the excuse that Hong Kong faces a serious housing shortage and even green land and forests must be flattened to build flats," Tam added. "We have no problem at all if the sites are really devegetated. But obviously they are not."

Watch: Rezoning of Tai Po green belt site causes controversy among residents