New authority to guard against collusion when building on farmland would just mean more red tape, Hong Kong developers’ group says
Real Estate Developers Association says body would be an additional layer of bureaucracy, further slowing process of developing land to ease housing crisis
An association that represents Hong Kong’s major developers has protested against having an independent body guard against collusion in any efforts by the public and private sector to jointly build homes on large tracts of abandoned farmland.
The Real Estate Developers Association said the body would be an additional layer of bureaucracy, further slowing the process of developing land to ease Hong Kong’s housing crisis.
Its remarks were in a letter on Friday to a government-appointed committee tasked with proposing ways to plug a predicted shortage of 1,200 hectares of land for long-term housing and economic development in the world’s least affordable property market.
The association said that developers already paid the government a land premium – a sum of money to use the site in a certain way that reflects its value after development – and that this was working efficiently.
“Any additional approval procedure, be it in the form of an [authority] or an advisory committee, is bound to create an additional layer of bureaucracy with the risk of adding uncertainty, inefficiency and delay to the already difficult land conversion process.”