Government announces land sale programme for July to September

The Secretary for Development, Mrs Carrie Lam, announced today (June 10) the land sale programme for the coming quarter, or the second quarter of the 2011-12 financial year.

"As mentioned by the Financial Secretary at the meeting of the Legislative Council Panel on Financial Affairs yesterday, the Government will continue to supply more housing land to the market and announce our land sale programme in advance on a quarterly basis," said Mrs Lam.

"For the coming quarter of July to September, we will initiate the sale of a total of seven sites from the 2011-12 Application List via auction or tender. Of these seven sites, only the site at Oil Street, North Point, is one of the sites designated for government-initiated sale when we announced the 2011-12 land sale programme, while the other six residential sites are taken from the Application List for direct disposal. The West Rail property development project at Nam Cheong Station is also planned for disposal in the coming quarter. These eight sites are expected to produce about 6,000 units, significantly higher than the estimated 3,000 units provided by the nine residential sites put out for sale in the quarter of April to June," Mrs Lam added.

The site at Oil Street, North Point, formerly used as a government supplies depot, will be sold via tender for mixed uses, including hotel (which is mandatory), residential or commercial (including offices) development. For the six other residential sites, they are of various sizes and located in different parts of the territory. 

"In order to better safeguard the quantity of flats to be provided, we see a need to include in the land sale conditions for the three bigger sites at Sha Tin Kau To, Yuen Long Hung Shui Kiu Tan Kwai Tsuen and Tseung Kwan O a requirement in respect of the minimum number of flats that the developers have to provide. Added together, these three sites will provide a minimum of about 2,100 flats," Mrs Lam explained.

"We are striving to provide a variety of housing sites to meet different demands in the market. We are therefore also putting out for sale three sites in Stanley, South Bay and Sai Kung that are suitable for low-rise house development," Mrs Lam added.

Railway property development projects are an important source of land supply. On this front, the Government has been making good progress in revising the master layout plans of four West Rail property development projects at Nam Cheong, Tsuen Wan 5 (Cityside), Tsuen Wan 5 (Bayside) and Long Ping (North) to comply with the new quality and sustainable built environment requirements that have been drawn up to control "inflated buildings" and to increase the supply of small and medium-sized flats. 

"Subject to the Town Planning Board's approval of the revised scheme for the Nam Cheong Station project in June, and finalisation of the tender terms and land grant conditions, the West Rail Property Development Limited will put the Nam Cheong site out for tender this September. This project is expected to provide 3,313 flats to the market, about 75% (2,485) of which are small and medium-sized flats," Mrs Lam added.

The Government has been offering sites for sale in a proactive manner since the announcement of the 2011-12 land sale programme. On previous occasions, a total of 12 residential sites (five of which carry size restrictions in order to increase the supply of small and medium-sized flats) have been identified for government-initiated sale. Of these 12 sites, nine have been put up for auction or tender in the April to June quarter (including the Tung Chung Area 55A site to be put out for tender in June), one (the Oil Street, North Point site) is to be disposed of in July, and the remaining two are undergoing rezoning processes.  

"To demonstrate our resolve to increase the supply of housing land, we have identified another six residential sites from the Application List for government-initiated sale in the coming quarter. We will continue these efforts while closely monitoring market developments in drawing up the land sale programme for the remainder of this financial year," said Mrs Lam.

A list of the sites to be sold in the coming quarter is attached. The Lands Department will separately announce detailed arrangements for the sale of the individual sites.


Ends/Friday, June 10, 2011
Issued at HKT 15:59

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