Hong Kong government exaggerated constraints in freeing up brownfield sites for more land: NGO Liber Research Community

Study shows amount of land for potential development exceeds official estimate, with only small fraction used for operations that are hard to relocate

Findings come as government task force set to present recommendations on boosting land supply in space-starved city

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Brownfield sites are mostly concentrated in Hong Kong’s New Territories. Photo: Edward Wong

Published: 8:03am, 20 Dec 2018Updated: 9:52am, 20 Dec 2018

The Hong Kong government exaggerated constraints in freeing up land held by businesses on damaged agricultural sites, a concern group has said.

In a year-long study, Liber Research Community, a local NGO focused on land and development research, found that the city had 1,521 hectares of brownfield sites – damaged agricultural land mostly located in the New Territories – and almost 90 per cent were used for operations that could be easily relocated into multi-storey buildings.

Liber Research Community members (from left) Chan Kim-ching, Brian Wong and Lam Yan present their report on brownfields. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

The total amount of such land exceeded the government’s estimate of 1,300 hectares. According to the group, only 12 per cent of the sites studied were identified as container yards and for heavy machinery storage, which are operations that would be difficult to relocate.

“They have land, they have the policies, they have the power, and they have the money. I see no point for the government to further exaggerate the difficulties when they have a lot of tools to tackle the problems of brownfield sites to increase land supply and fix the environment,” Brian Wong Shiu-hung, one of the group’s researchers, said.

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