The Chief Executive has recently announced the 2017 Policy Address entitled “Make Best Use of Opportunities, Develop the Economy, Improve People’s Livelihood, Build an Inclusive Society“. As top priority of the current-term Government’s policy agenda, housing and land supply continues to be the foci of the annual policy address. I believe we all agree that land supply is vital to the sustainable development of housing, economy and society. For this reason, the policy priority of the Government over the past few years has always been adopting a multi-pronged approach to provide sufficient short-, medium- and long-term land supply to meet the ever increasing housing demand, to support the sustainable and diversified economic growth, and to ensure that Hong Kong has the essential infrastructural facilities to enhance the city’s overall competitiveness and improve Hong Kong people’s quality of life.
Our efforts in increasing land supply are beginning to bear fruits. Despite all the difficulties encountered during the course, we are confident that we can solve the problems of soaring property prices, high rents and land shortage step by step, as long as we keep up with our hard work and rise to the challenges. Over the past few years, through our efforts on changing existing land uses and increasing development intensity involving some 210 housing sites identified through land use reviews, the Kai Tak Development Area, the Diamond Hill Comprehensive Development Area, reuse of three quarry sites, railway property developments and urban renewal projectsand more, a total of over 380 000 residential units can be provided. In the medium-to-long term, various new development areas (NDAs) and new town extensions, as well as potential railway development projects under planning, will be capable of providing over 220 000 residential units and over 8.6 million square metres of commercial and industrial floor area. In sum, the various short-, medium- and long-term land supply initiatives will be able to provide over 600 000 housing units in total.
However, the future of Hong Kong is still fraught with challenges; the continuous supply of land is hence quintessential. According to the latest population and domestic household projections by the Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong’s population and the number of domestic households will continue to increase, although at a slower pace. Due to the declining trend in average household size, the number of households will increase at a rate faster than the population, with the former expected to increase from 2.43 million in 2014 to 2.93 million in 2044, by about 500 000 or at an average annual rate of 0.6 per cent. Together with the demand from the inadequately housed households, our pressure on identifying land for housing would not be eased. Land is needed not just for provision of housing, but also for space to meet various demands from the community, including Government and community facilities, open space, economic land and supporting infrastructure. Moreover, land development takes a long lead time from planning to implementation, thus we cannot underestimate the difficulty of creating new land for development.
“Double ageing” of population and building stock
The ageing of population and building stock is another problem that we cannot evade. The proportion of elderly population (i.e. people aged 65 or above) in Hong Kong is projected to increase from about 15 per cent in 2014 to about 36 per cent in 2064, while that of aged 85 or above is projected to increase from about 2.2 per cent to about 10.1 per cent during the same period. In other words, one person out of ten will be an “old-old” elderly. On the other hand, there is a large number of rapidly ageing buildings in Hong Kong. According to the age profile of existing building stock and assuming that no building will be demolished, it is estimated that the number of private housing units aged 70 years or above will increase from about 1 000 at present to about 320 000 by 2046, representing an increase of nearly 300 times. We will need additional housing land as decanting space to cope with the needs arising from the redevelopment of old buildings in the urban areas. Meanwhile, our workforce is projected to start shrinking from 2018 onwards. All these are expected to bring significant uncertainties to our society and the economy. We must therefore plan way ahead of time. As we have already given detailed account of the Government’s long-term planning work in our previous blog posts, and in-depth discussions are being made as part of the on-going public engagement of the “Hong Kong 2030+: Towards a Planning Vision and Strategy Transcending 2030”, I will not repeat the details here.
Rational discussions on optimising land utilisation
The Chief Executive has stated that “we should incorporate more land with high ecological value into country parks, increase the total area of ecological conservation sites and country parks, and enhance their recreational and educational values. At the same time, we should also consider allocating a small proportion of land on the periphery of country parks with relatively low ecological and public enjoyment value for purposes other than real estate development, such as public housing and non-profit-making elderly homes”. In response, there are queries as to why the Government does not develop brownfield sites or other land first before considering developments in country parks. In fact, brownfield sites have all along been one of our land supply sources. By way of large-scale development projects including Hung Shui Kiu (HSK) NDA, Yuen Long South, and Kwu Tung North/Fanling North NDAs, a total of around 340 hectares brownfield sites will be released for high-density development through comprehensive planning. Moreover, the on-going “Preliminary Feasibility Study on Developing the New Territories North” also covers about 200 hectares of brownfield cluster. Other smaller scale development projects such as Wang Chau will also convert brownfield sites to high-density development to meet the society’s needs.
To gauge a comprehensive picture of brownfield sites in the territory and the brownfield operations thereon, the Planning Department will commission a study this year on the existing profile and operations of brownfield sites in the New Territories. Taking the HSK NDA as a pilot case, the Government is also actively exploring feasible measures such as multi-storey buildings to accommodate some of the brownfield operations which are still considered necessary in Hong Kong. The outcomes of the study would provide the necessary inputs to facilitate the Government’s consideration on how to tackle brownfield sites in a holistic manner, and to formulate appropriate polices and strategies with a view to achieving the various objectives of optimising land utilisation, releasing brownfields potential and improving the rural environment.
Please allow me to reiterate that the current-term Government has no specific plan to convert any particular area of country parks and special protection areas to other uses. Yet, as pointed out by the Chief Executive, the Government has to continue with its multi-pronged measures to tackle the problem of housing and land supply shortage in the long run. I hope the society will engage in rational discussions and deliberations on the pros and cons of the relevant topics.
Last but not least, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Mr Paul Chan, the Financial Secretary who was also the former Secretary for Development, as well as colleagues of various departments for their continuous efforts and hard work. We will do all that we can to implement the policy initiatives set out in the Policy Address. Our aim is to enhance Hong Kong people’s quality of life, so that all of us can share the fruits of our social and economic developments.
22 January, 2017
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