Development bureau moves to increase city housing stock

Secretary for Development Carrie Lam said Friday that the bureau is working to add sites in North Point and Ho Man Tin into the Application List System (ALS), hoping that it will provide a boost to the supply of private residential flats.

Under the ALS, a land auction is triggered only when a developer offers at least 80 percent of the government's price for the lot on the list.

Lam added that the Development Bureau is currently preparing the application list for 2011 to 2012.

Regarding the increase in demand for small and medium flats, the government is liaising with the MTR Corporation Limited and the Urban Renewal Authority (URA) to speed up the tendering process of the 11 residential development projects along the West Rail Line.

Lam also said that, for the first time, the government will inject clauses that will specify the sales conditions for a minimum number of units as well as restrictions on unit size. It will be imposed on the former Yuen Long Estate site in the New Territories, which is due to be tendered by the end of this year.

The bureau expects that the supply of private residential flats next year will reach 20,000, up from 9,000 this year.

This matches up with aims announced by Chief Executive Donald Tsang at the 2010-11 Policy Address earlier this week. The government plans on supplying 20,000 private residential flats annually for the next 10 years. These flats are to be supplied by various methods, including the government's regular land auctions, the ALS, lease modifications and land exchanges where a premium will be paid. It will also include projects tendered by the MTR and the URA as well as other private redevelopmemt projects not subject to premiums.

As for the proposal to form a steering committee on housing land supply to be chaired by Financial Secretary John Tsang, Lam said that all the departments concerned will coordinate with it to help increase land supply, even when the property market encounters periods of great change.

"The Policy Address has sent a strong signal to the market that adequate land supply is on its way so that stable home prices can be maintained in the future," said Joseph Tsang, international director and head of capital markets at Jones Lang LaSalle.

China Daily

(HK Edition 10/16/2010 page2)