A 100,000 square foot Ap Lei Chau site, the first Government lot for mixed development of private and subsidised housing, will be released for sale by tender next Friday. The Government has arranged two such sites for sale as a pilot scheme which is aimed at using private developers' resources to help improve the quality of subsidised housing. The second lot is a 180,000 sq ft site in West Kowloon Reclamation which is scheduled to be put out to tender in February. The concept of mixed development has received severe criticism from developers who do not want private units to be mixed up with subsidised housing units. Developers argue that letting low-income people and those who pay the full price of flats live under one roof is not appropriate. Chesterton Petty executive director Charles Chan Chiu-kwok believed this factor alone would make the land value of the Ap Lei Chau mixed-development sites 10 to 15 per cent lower than ordinary sites. But he said big developers would still be interested in bidding for the site. Under the concept, the developer who wins the Ap Lei Chau site will need to pay an up-front premium for the site. The winning developer will also be required to build a total residential floor area of 647,800 sq ft on the site. However, 30 per cent of units built, selected randomly, will be handed over to the Government which will sell them to low-income citizens at deep discounts. This portion of the project involves about 194,000 sq ft of the floor area. The remaining 70 per cent of the units, representing about 453,000 sq ft, will be left in the hands of the developer. These units can be sold to anyone at full price. The random selection of the 30 per cent of completed units to be earmarked as subsidised housing is intended to ensure that the developer builds the project to the highest construction standards. Government subsidised housing has long been criticised as sub-standard in quality. PROPERTY