Government response to media enquiries on public housing development at San Hing Road
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As pointed out in earlier responses to media enquiries, government departments concerned have adjusted the scope of development for the public housing site at San Hing Road with the target that public housing production will not be diminished. We have also said that the related technical study has been revised so that sites along San Hing Road and Hong Po Road with development potential will be taken into account as a whole for public housing development. Application for rezoning the related Outline Zoning Plan will be submitted to the Town Planning Board (TPB) after completion of the study. The Tuen Mun District Council (TMDC) will be consulted again in due course. It is expected that the public housing development at San Hing Road and Hong Po Road will be completed beyond the current ten year programme (2016/17 – 2025/26).
We have then also given the following background information to the media: we have located information indicating that prior to the TMDC meeting on September 2, 2014, five informal lobbying had taken place from May to August that year. The local representatives met were the then Chairman of the TMDC; Chairman of the Environment, Hygiene and District Development Committee of the TMDC; Chairman of the Commerce, Industry and Housing Committee of the TMDC, district council member of the constituency concerned and 1st Vice-chairman of the Tuen Mun Rural Committee and village representatives. There were further exchanges after the TMDC meeting.
Although the local representatives expressed objections during the lobbying, we were of the view that our plan then was feasible and worth presenting to the TMDC. Thus, formal consultation commenced afterwards. On September 2, 2014, we consulted the TMDC with our original proposal. At the meeting, members expressed concerns over transportation, rural industries, relocation and compensation and so on. The proposal was not supported by the district council in the end. On October 17, 2014 and March 13, 2015, the Rural and New Town Planning Committee of the TPB approved respectively two planning applications for private housing development within the site of our original proposal.
Since the TMDC did not approve our original proposal in September 2014, we have been studying ways to adjust our plan to build public housing at San Hing Road site and nearby areas. We also have to take into consideration that the TPB had then approved the two applications for private housing development in October 2014 and March 2015.
We are still formulating the development plan at San Hing Road. The internal work approach is constructing public housing at the western portion of the original 2014 proposal, together with another site adjacent to it; and for the rest of the site in the 2014 proposal, assuming that the two private residential projects within the original are to go ahead, construct public housing with a higher plot ratio. There are many factors that affect the estimation of the number of units that can be built. In internal discussions such estimates vary due to different assumptions or the purpose of the discussions. According to the latest estimation, the aforementioned two parts can render the production of 1,700 and 5,600 public housing flats respectively.
Meanwhile, the Government will study the feasibility of public housing development on another site at Hong Po Road, located to the west of the original 2014 proposed site.
We have to stress that, the study on the proposal for public housing development at San Hing Road has not yet completed. There are a lot of variables that will affect result of our study, including the current technical study and whether another site at the west of Hong Po Road, which is earmarked for public housing development, should be included into this development and so on. Therefore, the details of the proposals including the number of flats have yet to be determined.
Against this background, we have mentioned the construction of about 1,500 flats at the west of San Hing Road, which we expect can commence at an earlier date, when in response to questions and queries by the Legislative Council, we needed to outline projects that we are working on but whose completion fall outside the next decade. We have also stated then that as the details, including flat numbers, are subject to changes, the completion date could not be estimated.
Ends/Thursday, September 29, 2016
Issued at HKT 23:58
Issued at HKT 23:58
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