Nowhere to call home? New Territories offers ideal solution to end ‘wasteful use’ of land
Institute chief Cookson Smith laments poor environment caused by ad hoc development that takes place under the Small House Policy and calls for regeneration, greening and pedestrian connectivity
For many in Hong Kong, the dream of owning a home continues to grow more distant by the day. Tiny apartments, or what is commonly known in the city as shoe boxes, can cost upwards of HK$4 million.
True, speculators and mainland buyers have been snapping up homes, leading to record prices. Another reason is the scarcity of land, which is viewed as a key driver of prices. But is land scarce in Hong Kong?
Not so, according to a prominent think tank, which says that there is a “large amount of land in the New Territories [that is] reasonably well served by public transport of one kind or another”.
Our Hong Kong Foundation (OHKF) says in a report, titled “From Housing Market Outlook to Land Supply Strategy”, the government should explore and study all possible options, not only prioritise converting brownfield sites into developable land.
Compiled by a research team led by Dr Richard Wong, professor of economics and the Philip Wong Kennedy Wong Professorship in Political Economy at the University of Hong Kong, the report forecasts that the annual average number of new homes completed from 2016 to 2019 will be about 18,000. That represents a 60 per cent increase on the corresponding figure during the past decade.
Berating what he believes is a “wasteful use” of land “through the ad hoc development that takes place under the Small House Policy, Dr Peter Cookson Smith, president of the Hong Kong Institute of Urban Design, says: “We should have a regeneration, greening and pedestrian connectivity agenda for the city to actually improve what is now a very poor overall environment.