Two Hong Kong village land projects suspended after small-house policy court ruling
- Development Bureau halts plans for 113 village houses on public land
Hong Kong’s Development Bureau on Tuesday night said it would suspend two projects allowing indigenous villagers to build 113 small houses on public land, after a court ruled a day earlier that trading or granting government space for the purpose was unconstitutional.
The bureau said two projects in the New Territories villages of Pai Tau and Sheung Wo Che in Sha Tin and Ha Mei San Tsuen in Yuen Long would be halted as a result of Monday’s ruling.
The chief secretary said the plots, slated for “village-type development”, were scattered across about 600 rural villages.
“This means many of them are alleyways between houses, idle land, slopes and pavements,” Cheung said, while acting as city leader because Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor was on an official visit to Japan.
We should discuss whether such an archaic policy is still relevant in today’s society, when we have such a dire housing shortage
“The potential for development and building houses is not big,” he added.