Concrete Analysis | Using Hong Kong’s country parks may be one way to solve its housing supply problem
The complaint from a young legislative Council member over lack of space for intimacy arouses hot debate on housing supply again. Paul Chan Mo-po, the secretary for development, repeatedly urges support to the government’s initiatives to supply more land for housing development.
Strictly speaking, land supply should never be a problem in Hong Kong as no more than 20 per cent of the territory is developed. The essence of the problem is land use planning as more than half of the area of Hong Kong has zoning that prohibits development.
Apart from developed areas clustered around both sides of the harbour and a number of new towns, the majority of undeveloped land is either “brown land” or country parks. The housing shortage will end if brown land and country parks can be fully used to fuel housing supply.
Country park lovers naturally prefer that brown land is developed. However, this is not as easy as many people think. Most brown land is currently used for various purposes essential to Hong Kong’s economy, such as container storage, parking for trucks and construction equipment and industrial uses which require large open space. Brown land cannot be developed without these uses being moved to other locations so as not to cause interruption to their activities and adversely affect their workers.
Country park lovers naturally prefer that brown land is developed. However, this is not as easy as many people think
Some people have suggested putting these activities in multi-storey structures. Paradoxically, any land available for such multi-storey structures to allow for brown land use could be used for residential development instead, if available.
Ownership is another headache for the government. Brown land owners cover the spectrum from indigenous villagers to major developers, some holding large plots at more than 100,000 square feet while others have plots of just a few hundred or thousand square feet each. Moreover, the objectives of these owners are also quite diverse, from self-occupation to land holding for future development.