Advertisement
New World donates almost a fifth of its farmland reserves towards building public homes to ease Hong Kong’s housing woes
- New World Development will donate 3 million square feet of farmland to Hong Kong’s government and toward charity for building public homes
- The first part of the donation, comprising 28,000 square feet of land next to the Tin Shui Wai subway station, will be turned into 100 three-storey homes measuring 300 square feet each by 2022
Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
New World Development said it would donate nearly a fifth of its farmland reserves to Hong Kong’s government and to non-profit organisations for building public homes, stepping up with a tentative answer to the city’s housing crisis.
The company will hand over 3 million square feet (278,700 square metres) of farmland, equivalent to 27.8 hectares, said New World’s Executive Vice-Chairman Adrian Cheng Chi-kong.
The company, whose property portfolio includes the Rosewood luxury hotel and shopping centres, will donate three pieces of land totalling 28,000 sq ft next to the Tin Shui Wai subway station to Light Be – a non-profit specialist in social housing and tenant development that New World had been working with – for building 100 homes each measuring 300 sq ft, Cheng said.
Advertisement
Construction on the land, which will be released to Light Be for a token sum of HK$1, is expected to be completed by 2022. New World will gift 1 million sq ft in total to Light Be, and is open to donating more land to other non-profit organisations, he said.
Advertisement
“We are very concerned about the housing problem in society,” Cheng said at a press conference after announcing the company’s annual financial results in Hong Kong. “We hope this can relieve the housing problem [where] about 10,000 people can benefit.”
Advertisement
Select Voice
Choose your listening speed
Get through articles 2x faster
1.25x
250 WPM
Slow
Average
Fast
1.25x