Plan to convert industrial buildings into home-offices will need sweeteners to draw interest

Industry players have given a cool reception to a proposal to convert industrial buildings into loft-type apartments, and others say it would need incentives such as land-premium concessions.

Allowing the re-use or conversion instead of demolition and redevelopment of obsolete industrial buildings for other, particularly residential, use is raised in a Government study on long-term use of land.

The Planning Department is consulting the public on nine issues, including the use of industrial buildings in a more sustainable way, to prepare the overall planning strategy for Hong Kong for the years up to 2030.

As more industrial space in Hong Kong becomes available, one suggestion is to allow the conversion of factories into spacious homes with a mixture of homes and workshops for artists and professionals.

Planning Department chief town planner Alfred Lau Yiu-kwong said the idea of building loft-type homes in Hong Kong was supported by some professional bodies, but such a move would depend on public opinion.

He said SAR residential units were not spacious enough to motivate people to work at home, which was becoming increasingly popular in the United States. But some Hong Kong people were renting tenements as their home-offices.