Institute urges Hong Kong’s Town Planning Board to speed up land-use approvals process
Research conducted by the Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors concludes that the slow pace of processing town planning applications is having a negative impact on the supply of developable sites for residential purposes
It’s about time the Town Planning Board cut the red tape and speed up the pace of land-use approvals so that more homes could be built at a quicker pace, the influential Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors has urged.
Research by the institute shows that the present pace of processing town planning applications is slowing down the supply of developable sites for residential purposes.
In Hong Kong, the board is the statutory body responsible for preparing plans for specific areas, creating layouts for them, and deciding on land use and building types. It also provides the legal framework for public engagement on plan preparations and planning applications.
According to the institute’s research, from about 1,400 cases submitted to the board for approval during 2013 to 2015, about one third were approved in a year on average, while more than half needed up to six months or longer to review.
In 2015 alone, about half of the 470 submissions were postponed, with some applicants having to resubmit their applications four times due to various queries by the board.
The slow reviewing and approval process has become a bottleneck for the supply of suitable residential sites for building more homes, the institute says in the report.