The Government has compromised in its mixed-development pilot scheme in a bid to calm developers' concerns about the problems of incorporating private and subsidised housing under one roof. Under a new arrangement, developers will have more flexibility in designing and building the projects. They will have a completely free hand in the development of 40 per cent of the project in terms of floor area, but there will be restrictions on the remaining 60 per cent. Half will be randomly selected and handed over for sale under the Home Ownership Scheme. The original plan was for the Government to choose 30 per cent of the whole project, which would have restricted developers' building designs. Developers had expressed severe reservations over the original concept because they feared that mixing private and subsidising housing could pose a problem by making people on different income levels live under one roof. Henderson Land Development's Augustine Wong Ho-ming said it would study making a bid for the Ap Lei Chau mixed-development site which opens for tender today. Mr Wong, general manager of the company's development division, said the new arrangement of reserving 40 per cent of floor space for purely private units would mitigate the impact from mixing private and subsidised flats. But there could be a problem in management charges, as residents in the development would share the same facilities, he said. And the lower-income households might not want to pay the same fees. This potential problem would be reflected in lower bidding prices for mixed sites, he said. Chesterton Petty executive director Charles Chan Chiu-kwok said the risks of mixed development would be lowered under the new scheme. But it was unlikely to boost land prices as developers still faced marketing problems for the projects.