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4. Land Reserve

For any large-scale land development projects, a long-term vision is
needed to pursue an efficient and successful development process. Hence,
it is within this underlying principle that the following chapter points to the
necessity of a land reserve to satisfy Hong Kong’s spatial capacity and
housing demand in the future.

4.1 Consistency and Persistence in

Land Supply Strategy

As evident in the analysis of the previous chapter, the lead-time
from statutory planning process to the completion of building for medium
to long-term large-scale land development initiatives could be exceedingly
lengthy. Change of land use and other related statutory processes could
be very complicated. Issues like land resumption, relocation, resettlement,
and compensation have become increasingly convoluted. As discussed in
Chapter 3, for brownfield sites development in the New Territories covering
extensive expanses of private plots with varying operational usage, lead-
times may take upward of 10 years, hence our disagreement with any
land supply strategy that prioritise brownfield sites, or any other particular
avenue of land supply over others. Instead, we support a multi-pronged
approach to increasing land supply, encompassing short-, medium- and
long-term measures.

With the lead-time of large scale, medium- to long-term projects
requiring an extended period for comprehensive planning and building
construction, it is prudent that the government embarks on a systemic and
persistent approach to land development. However, during the mid-2000s
when the housing market began to rebound from its trough, much was
left to be desired in terms of the consistency and persistence in the land
supply strategy.

We have already analysed in our first Research Report how the
Hong Kong community as a whole, has paid an immense price because
of such a protracted lag in land supply in response to market changes. The
first Research Report indicates that this has led to rapidly rising home prices
and the surge in both residential and commercial rents, consequentially
weakening Hong Kong’s economic competitiveness. Moreover, the
healthcare system is also overburdened because of a shortage of land.

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