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the whole development plan.

The Lantau Development means much more than just another source
of developable land supply. It embodies the last – and the next – bold,
essential and visionary land development project of Hong Kong that
would be critical for our long-term social and economic development.

6. Speeding Up Land Development

Increasing development density

In view of the chronic shortage of space, to maximise the supply of
different types of properties, we suggest further relaxation of development
density should be considered in future NDAs or new town development
projects, e.g. Kai Tak and Tseung Kwan O.

According to a recent research published by the Faculty of
Construction and Environment of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University,
the expected additional impacts on such factors as day-light duration, air
circulation, skyline and atmospheric temperature are only minimal even if
the average domestic plot ratio of the sites in Kai Tak NDA were raised to
6.7. Such a proposed change, however, would potentially increase domestic
and non-domestic GFA by some additional 1.6 million sf and 1.2 million sf
respectively.

It should be reminded that in the 2001 development plan for the
Kai Tak NDA, the original population intake exceeded 210,000. This is in
stark contrast with the latest corresponding figure of 123,000. As a rough
reference, even if the development density is further increased by 20%, the
population intake would still be below 150,000, or 30% less than that in the
2001 development plan.

Similar situation exists in other areas. Take Tsueng Kwan O South
as another example. In 2005 when the property market was much less
heated and the issue of over-supply was constantly lingering in the
community, the government has responded by significantly lowering the
plot ratios in Tseung Kwan O South from 6.5 to the range between 2 and 5.
This represented a reduction in population intake from 131,000 to 98,000, or
roughly 10,000 residential units.

Optimising underused government sites

Our brief research on Government, Institution / Community (GIC)
sites in the Kowloon urban areas shows there are certain GIC sites in these
regions that are either underused or poorly managed with undesirable
conditions. Such sites include cooked food hawker bazaars, refuse collection
points, car parks and work sites and could be found in areas like Tsuen Wan,
Cheung Sha Wan and Yau Ma Tei.

To fully realise their development potential, especially when they
are located in the urban areas, one possible way is to redevelop these
sites into composite buildings to accommodate the original use (e.g. the
cooked food facilities) with other public uses atop (e.g. non-permanent

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