Land Sale in Tseung Kwan O One Developer with Conscience ‘Mission Impossible’ Continue!
An auction of a land near Tseung Kwan O MTR Station will be held on February 22 (Tomorrow). The development restrictions in Conditions of Sale though is better than the past, a minimum distance among blocks has not set. As the site is a rectangle with a length of 120m and the diagonal of even up to 150m, walled buildings composed of three or four building blocks are foreseeable. The area of the walled buildings is 1.5 football pitches erected.
Green Sense posted advertisement in two newspapers last week, inviting “developers with conscience”. We hope prospective developer promises to spare an east-west and 15m wide ventilation 廊。corridor in the middle of the construction site (Chinese version available only : http://www.greensense.org.hk/good_developer). There is a developer who agreed to promise but would like to announce before the land sale is about to start.
Unfortunately, most developers have not indicated that they would make such promise. We, Green Sense, displayed tiger dolls to express our determination in negotiating with the developers. In Chinese idiom, it also means a mission impossible. “Only if the government states clearly on the Conditions of Sale, will developers beware the negative consequences of the construction of walled buildings. Expecting developers to be self-motivated will be unrealistic. The latter situation is like ‘asking a tiger for its skin’ said President of Green Sense, Mr. Roy Tam hoi-pong. We put logos of developers, which have not promised to improve their plan, and the photos of their managerial persons on the “to be conscientious” board, hoping that they will recall their conscience before the land sale.
We will place two exhibition boards outside the auction hall. One shows “Developers with Conscience” and the other shows “Developers to be conscientious”. Developers can indicate an agreement simply by moving their company’s logo to the “Developers with Conscience” board.
We also suggest Financial Secretary, Mr. John Tsang and Secretary for Development, Mrs. Carrie Lam, enhance the quality of land supply and application for land sale, including setting up windows in hotels and commercial land in order to reduce the use of air conditioning. We urge government to speed up the review of policy about ‘inflated’ buildings and significantly reduce exemption items for the calculation of gross floor area.
At present, many developers only build large units. We recommend limiting the average size per sq. ft. of all units in order to ensure large and small units are both available and at the same time ensure design flexibility. The price for a new estate in Yuen Long is even up to $5,000 sq. ft. The price has probably been pushed up by Mainland investors. The private residential real estate market is unable to maintain a reasonable price for the locals. The only solution is to resume house building under the “Home Ownership Scheme”.
Six Recommendations on Land Policy
*All words and expressions should be construed according to the press release in Chinese.
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