Land meant for developers may be used for public housing instead

Some government sites set to be sold to private developers may be redesignated for public housing, Secretary for Development Paul Chan Mo-po said yesterday, a day after the government increased its target for new homes.

But critics warned that such a move would compromise the amount of land available for the private market, and push up home prices further.

He was speaking after housing minister Professor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung on Tuesday unveiled the Long Term Housing Strategy report, which set a new target of building 290,000 public flats and 190,000 private flats in the next decade - taking the total to 480,000 by 2025.

Chan yesterday addressed queries on whether the government could find enough land to achieve this goal, and urged the public to support its plans.

Citing the official projection that 74,000 new private residential properties would be put on the market in the next three to four years, the development minister said this supply level was much higher than the annual average of 9,500 flats over the past five years. He added that there might be room to reallocate some of the sites for public housing use.

Chan said: "If progress with regards to private housing is good, we may release some sites from the land sale programme and change their use to public housing."

Such a move would not be unprecedented. Three sites in Shek Mun, Sha Tin, for example, were withdrawn from the original land sale programme last year to build 1,700 public flats.