Turn parks into housing: Areas with ‘low ecological value’ could be used for new flats, CY says
Flats built on such land could be sold to targeted groups, including young people, at lower price than market level, chief executive says
Hong Kong should explore the possibility of turning sections of country parks with low ecological value into land for housing, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said today.
Leung’s remarks, made just before an Executive Council meeting, echoed similar comments by researchers from think tank Our Hong Kong Foundation, which yesterday proposed the government review the ecological value and purpose of all country parks as part of a housing reform plan.
Leung said there were suggestions in the community that parts of the city’s 400 square kilometres of country park deemed to be of low ecological and sightseeing value could be turned into flats.
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He said he had raised a similar idea with young people during youth forums discussing housing in the past. He said flats built on such land could be sold to targeted groups, including young people, at a much lower price than the market level as the land premium could be waived.
“So what do young people think about this suggestion? ... I think we can explore it,” Leung said.
“Land is like other resources. Sometimes we cannot have one thing to serve two purposes,” he said.
“When we have country parks, we will have less land for development. When we have more land for development we will have less land for country parks.”
The foundation suggested the government could set up a platform “to review the ecological value and purpose of all country parks based on scientific standards”.
Leung said he welcomed the think tank’s efforts in studying the city’s housing problems.
He added that plans to build about 14,400 public rental flats had been delayed due to legal challenges such as judicial reviews launched by local residents in the project areas.
Meanwhile, a leading researcher with the foundation said today that a proposal made by the think tank yesterday to reform the city’s subsidised housing schemes to help 80 per cent of families buy their own home could make society more stable.
The foundation, which is headed by former chief executive Tung Chee-hwa, yesterday proposed that people living in subsidised flats should be allowed to pay a land premium to the government that does not fluctuate with the market. That would allow them to sell their property as a step to owning a home in the private sector.
READ MORE: 80pc of Hong Kong households can own homes with fixed land premiums for subsidised housing, urges former CE’s think tank
Foundation adviser Richard Wong Yue-chim, professor in political economy at the University of Hong Kong, said today that if the majority of the population become flat owners, they would share the same interests, and this could help improve social stability.
“Part of the community have in the past benefited from rising flat prices and economic booms but other groups have been unable to benefit from these. This is a cause for social division,” he said during a Commercial Radio talk show.
“So when most people own a flat or have the potential to own one, their interests will become the same,” he said. “This relates to the city’s governance.”
Wong said the community was divided into two extremes in terms of their assets.
“Flat owners now each have an asset worth several million to tens of millions, while people who do not own a flat have very little assets,” he said.
The income disparity between public housing tenants and flat owners was small in the 1970s but had enlarged over the years, he said.
“This has been splitting the two groups further apart in terms of their geographical locations - the estates they live in. And this destabilises the whole of society.”
