New | Strong opposition seen to use land in Hung Shui Kiu for housing
Chief executive's pilot scheme to relocate affected users in Yuen Long site to make way for more housing may encounter strong opposition
A pilot scheme to relocate existing industrial operators into multistorey buildings to free up land in the northwestern New Territories for housing development is expected to face strong opposition.
The idea was unveiled in Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying's third policy address last Wednesday as a way to increase land supply in the medium to long term to ease the city's housing shortage.
"It is a big challenge for the government to look for area sufficient to accommodate the affected operators," said Lau Chun-kong, international director at JLL.
In his address, Leung said that he expected to use about 190 hectares of a brownfield site in Hung Shui Kiu in the northwestern New Territories for housing projects.
The site, now home to open storage, cargo and rural industrial workshops, is equivalent in size to almost four West Kowloon Cultural Districts.
"The government is studying feasible measures, including accommodating some of the users in multistorey buildings and taking the 'brownfield sites' inside the Hung Shui Kiu New Development Area as a pilot case," Leung said.
Lau doubted if the government's earlier proposed 62 hectare logistics park would be big enough to resettle these industrial operators which require large areas of land to run their operations.