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SCMP Reporter

No new serviced apartments will be available for sale to individuals in Hong Kong  after the latest batches of units are launched.

Surveyors said only a few serviced apartment projects would come on to the market as the Town Planning Board had abolished the category  in 2000.

They are Sun Hung Kai Properties' 1,624-unit Chelsea Court, which is being offered for pre-sale, and Kwong Sang Hong's 960-unit Indi-Home and  Nan Fung Development's 452-unit project, neither of which are near completion.

All three developments are on Yeung Uk Road in Tsuen Wan.

Surveyors said a former Tung Chun Soy & Canning factory in Kwai Chung would also be developed into serviced apartments for individual sale. Approval was granted in March 2000 for units covering a floor area of 460,000 square feet and a 210,000 sq ft hotel.

Market observers said the category was a grey area that had enabled developers to sell projects the government did not intend to approve for long-term residential use.

Under the Town Planning Board's guidelines, serviced apartments  are 'hotel-like' projects characterised by centralised air-conditioning and centralised services to tenants.

While the guidelines stipulate that open spaces and community facilities in industrial and commercial areas are not for 'long-term family population', no rules prohibit the sale of individual units.

According to the Planning Department, the three projects on Yeung Uk Road were approved in 1998 as they were considered 'land use buffers' between industrial and residential zones in Tsuen Wan. For example,  Chelsea Court is being built on a site previously home to a bottling plant.

'There was no way the government would approve converting the site for residential use due to the poor surrounding area,' said SK Pang Surveyors head Pang Shiu-kee. 'Therefore, the developer could only apply for it to be converted into a comprehensive development area [which allows for hotels and service apartments]. The government originally intended to use some serviced apartments as a buffer between the residential and industrial areas.'

He said a typical example was Hutchison Whampoa's Rambler Crest, next to Container Terminal No 9 in Tsing Yi, where there is heavy traffic even at night.

Hutchison released the first batch of units at Rambler Crest for sale in June last year at an exceptionally low price of about $1,700 per square foot.

Although the price has risen to more than $2,000 per square foot, Rambler Crest is still cheaper than other projects in Tsing Yi.

'Serviced apartment projects near industrial areas should be viewed as inferior products as their poor environments and significant shortage of open space should be quite obvious to flat seekers,' a surveyor said.



Serviced units will be the last offered to individual buyers