Housing Authority's Building Committee and Tender Committee Members visit construction sites (with photos)
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The following is issued on behalf of the Hong Kong Housing Authority:
 
     Members of the Hong Kong Housing Authority's (HA) Building Committee and Tender Committee today (April 26) visited two construction sites, one at the construction stage and the other near the intake stage, to better understand the challenges of current public housing development.
 
     At the Fanling Area 49 site near Yung Shing Court, Members were briefed on the progress of the public housing project comprising 952 flats in two blocks, which is tentatively scheduled for completion at the end of 2019. Members noted the constraints of the linear site, including special geological conditions and an underground culvert (with drainage reserve zones on both sides of the culvert) running across the central part of the site, which has limited the area for possible development of building blocks.
 
     Members then visited the Lin Tsui Estate site at Lin Shing Road, Chai Wan, which will provide 288 rental flats in one single block. Formerly the Housing Department's Chai Wan Staff Quarters, this small-sized site, with a gross area of only about 2000 square metres and a considerable portion being existing slopes, is bounded by an existing private residential development to the north, and man-made and natural slopes to the south and west.
 
     To maximise the development potential by increasing the net site area, a podium deck was built extending above part of the peripheral slopes within the site. The party noted that mitigation measures have been adopted to attenuate the traffic noise from Lin Shing Road, including setting back the domestic block from the road and providing a noise-barrier wall and acoustic fins on the external walls of the flats. The occupation permit is now under application and tenant intake is anticipated to be in mid-2018.
  
     Visits to the HA's construction sites and facilities have been organised from time to time by the Housing Department for members of the HA and its committees to enable them to gain a first-hand understanding of the HA's public housing programme.

Ends/Thursday, April 26, 2018
Issued at HKT 19:35

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