4,000 public flats to go up at Diamond Hill site formerly home to historic village
The site of a former historic village and moviemaking hub in Diamond Hill will be home to 4,000 public flats housing 12,000 residents, after town planning advisers approved the government's redevelopment proposal.
Housing blocks will occupy 2.83 hectares of the 7.18-hectare site of the former Tai Hom village, built in 1800, and the adjacent Ha Yuen Leng.
The villages have been pulled down save for a stone house that was once the home of late movie star Roy Chiao.
Two other structures, a pillbox and a former Royal Air Force hangar - both listed as grade two historic buildings - have been removed and will be relocated along with the stone house to a new 1.64-hectare park to make way for the MTR's Sha Tin-Central link project, under the final plan endorsed by the Town Planning Board yesterday.
"Is it necessary to have so much open space?" Dr Wilton Fok Wai-tung asked. "Now the demand for housing is so big and we have been fighting for every small site even to build pencil towers … Shouldn't such a big piece of land be better utilised?"