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residence like youth hostels). Langham Place is one such precedence, at
which the indoor cooked food centre is situated at the podium level in a tall
development.

We suggest the government to further review such sites in the
urban area and consider short-term solutions like the ones described
above. We hope that these land resources could provide at least a
temporary relief for the inadequately housed. Alternatively, these land
resources can at least be considered to support a denser development of
other public facilities, such as community centres.

Streamlining Approval Processes

We are glad to see that the Development Bureau has
communicated with the industry to discuss a set of improvements to the
current approval mechanism. Some of the discussed proposals are similar
to what we have raised in our first Research Report, for example a set of
clearly pre-defined parameters (“Core Points”) to be included in the approval
of the “Design, Deposition and Height” submission and a standardised
format of “Master Layout Plan” in accordance with the Practice Note. We
hope that the government could actively strive to follow-up with these
proposals.

We also reiterate our concern with the existing mechanism of land
premium determination. This is especially the case when the “Pilot Scheme
for Arbitration on Land Premium” which was introduced back in 2014 has
only completed the abitration for one such case to date, involving a small
amount of $39.3 million. We suggest the government to comprehensively
review the said mechanism such that it can reflect the impact on
development costs in response to latest changes in market situations and
/ or regulatory environment.

During the six fiscal years 2010/11 to 2016/17, the recurrent expenditure
in the area of Planning and Lands rose by 43.3%, whereas aggregate
recurrent government expenditure actually expanded by 55.7% over the
same period. We urge the government to review its budgetary principles
and allocate sufficient resources in accordance with the increasing needs
of the policy area.

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