Hong Kong’s Development Bureau requests HK$29.2 billion for Hung Shui Kiu new town plan

To reduce government expenditure to acquire private land for development, landowners can apply for a land exchange scheme in Hung Shui Kiu.

Eligible applicants can convert their farmland into designated uses by paying land premiums, which can be negotiated with the government or determined based on a standard rate set by official surveyors.

“We will soon issue a practice note applicable to the area to share details about the land exchange application arrangements,” Vic Yau Cheuk-hang, director of the Northern Metropolis Co-ordination Office, said.

The scheme was first introduced for the Kwu Tung North and Fanling North project. Only two applications were approved in 2017 during its first phase.

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The government gave the green light to nine applications in the second phase, but six of the cases failed to complete the process last year. The rejected landowners chose not to pay the standard rate.

Louis Loong Hon-biu, a lawmaker representing the real estate and construction constituency, said he hoped the government would learn from recent experience.

“The standard rate was slightly too high and the deadline set for the entire time frame was too short,” Loong said at a meeting of the legislature’s development panel. “It’s a pity that we cannot secure those plots and the government has to acquire them.”

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Permanent Secretary Doris Ho Pui-ling vowed that authorities would learn from past experience, but insisted that a deadline for the application was needed.

“If the land exchange scheme fails eventually, the government has to reclaim the land. We cannot let this affect the overall development of the new development area,” she said.

Ho added that the government would outline details of the final phase of the new town next month along with the development plan for nearby areas in Lau Fau Shan, Tsim Bei Tsui and Pak Nai.

She said the sites would become part of the high-end professional services and logistics hub in the Northern Metropolis.