Development Bureau: 3,000 hectares of land needs to be created; Real estate developers donating land is difficult to affect the overall situation.
(By Ngan LunLok)
Yesterday, the Government announced the land sales plan of the third quarter (October to December) in the fiscal year, launching two official sites in Tai Hang and Tuen Mun involving 980units, and MTR will also launch LOHAS Park phase 12 involving 2,000 units for tender, then there are totally 2,980 units, up 38.6% in quarter; Plus with about 100 units from private development and reconstruction projects, the supply in next quarter is expected to 3,080 units. In the first three quarters, the total supply was 9,230 units, which have reached 68% of the land supply target of 13,500 units in the fiscal year. The government believes that the land supply progress is better than last year, emphasizing the confidence to reach the target throughout the year.
The Secretary for Development Bureau, Woo WaiLun expressed yesterday that, there would be two official sites and one MTR project in the next quarter, involving 2,980 units, an increase of 38.6% compared with 2,150 units in this quarter. The supply in the first three quarters was 9,230 units, reaching 68% of the target of 13,500 units for the whole year. Woo WaiLun pointed out that, the land supply progress this year was better than last year, and believed the target for the whole year would be reached, also emphasized that the government would maintain a sustainable and stable land supply.
Woo WaiLun stressed that the supply of commercial land is sufficient.
It is worth noting that the government will not launch commercial land in the next quarter, which is reminiscent of whether it is related to the recent failure of bid for Kai Tak commercial site. Woo WaiLun expressed, although there will not have new commercial land to be launched in the next quarter, the government will continue to pay close attention to the market situation and sell commercial land in due time. He also pointed out that the government does not stipulate to launch commercial land to market every quarter, and the commercial land supply this year is sufficient, with only the commercial project on top of the West Kowloon High Speed Rail Station has exceeded 3 million sq ft.
Regarding the reasons for the failure of bid for Kai Tak commercial land, Woo WaiLun expressed, Lands Department has a team of surveyors who set the reserve price on the morning when the tender was closed, which was quite close to the market. Although the valuation principles between the government and private surveyors are similar, the government would value according to the recent market transactions and market conditions, while developers would also review the company's risk tolerance, so when there are private developers having higher risk estimates, then the bid will be lower than the government reserve price, leading eventually to failure of bid.
Kai Tak commercial land that was failure of bid has no intention to be used for other purposes.
Will the Government re-plan the use since the case of forfeiture of deposit and failure of bid repeated among Kai Tak commercial land? Woo WaiLun expressed, there was successful sales of Kai Tak commercial lands, and admitted that Hong Kong's recent economic downturn would have an impact on developer’s future expectations. The Government has no intention to change the land use due to the current failure of bid, because it would take 1 to 2 years for re-plan, and the land use decided before was decided carefully, but the market changed quickly. He pointed out that, the current land use will be maintained if it would be relaunched in future.
A few days ago, New World announced the donation of 3 million sq ft (about 28 hectares) of agricultural land. Asked whether it may affect the government's deployment, Woo WaiLun said that he did not see any influence. According to his understanding, some of the farmland will be donated to the "caring" social enterprises, which will develop the land into transitional housing, and government will follow up, also he believed it is a good thing for developers to donate land to do social welfare. However, he pointed out that, the related developer did not contact the government on whether to return farmland to the government, and the two sides did not discuss about it.
He stressed that, the Government does not consider that donations this time will be capable to change the long-term land supply blueprint, because the Land Supply Group has previously proposed eight measures, including brownfield development, reclamation and development of New Development Zone in the New Territories, involving a total of about 3,000 hectares newly add lands, so the increase of dozens of hectares of land donated by individual developers will have no impact on the overall land supply pattern.
400 hectares of land will be recovered in the next 5 years.
Woo WaiLun also revealed that, the Land Supply Group has pointed out that there is a shortage of at least 1,200 hectares of land in Hong Kong, but the actual shortage would be higher, revealing that the government will announce new data in future. Even though developers would donate farmland later, the government will still use the Lands Resumption Ordinance to reclaim land, and revealed that the new development areas or individual New Territories land will be reclaimed in the next few years. It is estimated that about 400 hectares of land will be reclaimed in the next five years, thus the speed has increased significantly compared with the past. He expressed, the social consensus on government should make better use of brownfields is quite high, and the Government will also proceed accordingly, also it will reclaim the land through the Land Resumption Ordinance if it is suitable for high-density public housing.
