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Planning, Land and Infrastructure

As at end-2018, 128 of the 210-odd sites had been zoned or rezoned for housing, estimated to provide about 140,100 public and 43,200 private housing flats. Statutory rezoning procedures had been initiated for another 18 sites that, subject to completion of the rezoning, are estimated to provide about 10,800 public and 1,000 private housing flats.

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 CBD2, and earmarking land for commercial and industrial use in new development projects.

The government sold one industrial site in 2018-19. It expects to put up a number of commercial sites at the Kai Tak Development Area, above Hong Kong West Kowloon Station of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link, and at the New Central Harbourfront, Caroline Hill Road and Queensway Plaza for sale in the coming years.

Kowloon East has the potential to supply about 4.4 million square metres of commercial and office floor space in addition to its existing supply of over 2.6 million sq m.

Revitalisation of Industrial Buildings

In the 2018 Policy Address, six new measures were announced to revitalise industrial buildings to provide more floor area to meet changing social and economic needs and make better use of valuable land resources. The measures were as follows:

• To offer waiver-fee exemption to incentivise the wholesale conversion of industrial buildings aged 15 years or above in certain types of zoning, with the condition that 10 per cent of the converted floor space should be designated for government-prescribed

uses;

• To relax the maximum permissible non-domestic plot ratio by up to 20 per cent to incentivise the redevelopment of industrial buildings constructed before 1987 at sites located outside residential zones in main urban areas and new towns, subject to TPB's approval;

• To be flexible in applying planning and building design requirements and to cancel the waiver fee so as to facilitate the provision of transitional housing in industrial buildings that have no industrial uses and have been converted wholesale;

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