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Clearly, land will be necessary for building rehousing flats. Land has been made available to the LDC for such purpose in the past. More would be needed in the urban area in future. An alternative would be for the LDC to cooperate with the Housing Society which also has experience in redevelopment projects and expertise in the provision of affordable housing and management. There is therefore an opportunity for synergy between the two bodies. The LDC could become the land assembly and redevelopment agent and contribute funds to enable the Housing Society to be the rehousing agent in redevelopment schemes.
We would also wish to examine one of the original concepts behind the establishment of the LDC, which is urban decanting. The approach involves the granting of a site to the LDC to kick off rehousing arrangements for a particular scheme. When that area is subsequently redeveloped, flats in that new development are used for decanting residents from the next scheme. This means a renewed emphasis on housing in LDC projects rather than commercial development, although we still wish to see the LDC providing new commercial space to service the redeveloped properties and ensure balanced development. Additional land may have to be injected into the system from time to time.
Mr President, I must pause here to sound a note of caution. We recognise the desire of many residents to remain close to their old homes and the difficulties they face if compelled to move away to other districts. But rehousing in the same district is simply not possible for all cases. Urban renewal requires the lowering of development densities in the main urban areas and that means that some of the original residents have to move away. Simply building ever higher blocks of flats is not the solution. Infrastructure provisions such as transport, sewers, water supply and all the other essentials of urban life cannot support ever increasing numbers of people in the same amount of space. The urban environment can only become further degraded and most of the planning gains lost if we go down that route.
Turning to commercial tenants, the Administration is aware of the need to provide options for those affected by redevelopment. Some will continue to be content to accept cash compensation and wind up their businesses. Others will however want to remain in businesses. It may therefore be useful if interest-free loans could be devised to enable such operators to fit out new premises to relocate and possibly upgrade their businesses. It may also be possible to offer commercial units in rehousing blocks or in the redevelopment projects themselves to affected tenants.
Another problem encountered in redevelopment cases are informal businesses operating without proper tenancies and often occupying very small spaces underneath staircases. They are eligible only for ex-gratia allowances under the current policy. The level of these allowances may have to be reviewed to moderate the effect of redevelopment on them.
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