ENG-2017 — Page 247

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Planning, Land and Infrastructure

Housing Land Supply

Public housing land supply comes from new government housing sites and redevelopment of existing public housing estates. Private housing land supply comes from various sources, including the disposal of government sites for private residential development through the Land Sale Programme, railway property development, urban renewal and private development or redevelopment projects.

Commercial and Industrial Land Supply

Measures to increase the supply of commercial/business sites include putting up new commercial and industrial sites for sale, converting government properties and government, institution or community sites in CBDs for commercial use, providing commercial space at the Central Harbourfront upon completion of works, energising Kowloon East as the second CBD, and earmarking land for commercial and industrial use in new development projects.

Under the 2017-18 Land Sale Programme, the government has put up three sites, one each for commercial, hotel and industrial uses, for sale in the first three quarters. The government expects to put up a number of commercial sites, including at the Kai Tak Development Area, above the terminus of the Hong Kong Section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link, and at the New Central Harbourfront, Caroline Hill Road, Queensway Plaza and Sai Yee Street, for sale starting from 2018-19. These sites will provide a total of about 1.1 million square metres of floor area.

Kowloon East has the potential to supply about 4.5 million sq m of commercial and office floor space in addition to its existing supply of about 2.5 million sq m. A site in the Kai Tak Development Area was sold in 2017, providing about 174,000 sq m of commercial and office floor space. The total commercial and office gross floor area planned for the Kowloon Bay and Kwun Tong action areas is about 560,000 sq m.

On a separate front, a study is in progress on how to utilise land optimally at the Hong Kong Boundary Crossing Facilities Island of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge for commercial and other economic uses. Up to 500,000 sq m of gross floor area can be made available.

Land Disposal

Government land is usually disposed of through public sale for private residential, commercial and other developments. Included in the annual Land Sale Programme are sites with potential for sale in the year. The government announces quarterly in advance sites to be sold to provide transparency and certainty for the market and may add sites for sale in the course of a year or a quarter so as to respond more flexibly to changes in market conditions.

During the year, 10 residential sites, two commercial sites, one commercial/hotel site, two business sites, one hotel site, one industrial site and three petrol stations, covering about 13.3 hectares in total, were sold for about $128.4 billion, providing about 6,080 private residential flats and a maximum of 449,438 sq m of gross floor area for commercial or other economic uses.

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