- 900 hectares freed by Ding rights ruling. Portion of them should be developed immediately"The court ruled that two of the three ways rural residents exercised their traditional but controversial rights under the small-house policy were unlawful.
Introduced in 1972, the policy entitles adult male descendants of indigenous people in the New Territories the right to build a three-storey house of 700 sq ft per floor.
One of their three options is to apply for a “free building licence” to construct a house on their own land without having to pay the required tax. The court ruled this avenue constitutional on Monday. Villagers who do not own any land can ask the government to sell them public space at a discount under what is known as a private treaty grant. Those who own land which is not suitable for housing can apply to exchange it with the government, possibly also without paying a premium. These last two avenues will cease to exist in six months. (in Nov 2019)
From 1972 to June last year, the government granted 28,305 free building licences, 10,763 private treaty grants and 3,610 land exchanges."
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-crime/article/3005283/high-court-ruling-village-houses-will-do-little-ease
"Hong Kong’s Development Bureau on Tuesday night said it would suspend two projects allowing indigenous villagers to build 113 small houses on public land, after a court ruled a day earlier that trading or granting government space for the purpose was unconstitutional.
(...)
Brian Wong Shiu-hung, a member of concern group the Liber Research Community, said the court ruling was the first step towards changing the small-house policy, which he called 'a historical and complex problem'.
(...)
According to the group’s earlier research, at least 30 of the 900 hectares are plots of 5,000 sq ft or more. They were also close to roads and new towns, making them suitable for public use, he said.
Wong said the findings were based on a conservative estimate and the plots were not as scattered as the government said."
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3005347/land-affected-hong-kong-small-house-policy-ruling-not
"But Chan Kim-ching of concern group Liber Research Community said Cheung was sounding off too soon before a detailed investigation on the development potential of idle land.
Chan said a study done by the group earlier found at least 34 hectares of land zoned for small houses as being suitable for development.
'Many of them are over a hectare in size and can be used for developing subsidized housing or middle- and high-density public housing,' he claimed.
Citing Ha Mei San Tsuen in Yuen Long, Chan said an idle plot reserved by the government for the expansion of the village is two hectares in size.
Another idle area zoned for village expansion in Pai Tau Hang in Sha Tin is one hectare, he said, and that is close to Sha Tin MTR Station.
Liber had estimated the 34 hectares can accommodate 11,000 to 14,000 public housing units."
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news.php?id=206732 - Rural leader corporatist behavior
"The head of Hong Kong’s rural clans organisation has defended the housing privileges of overseas male descendants of indigenous villagers, despite them not having a Hong Kong identity card or permanent residency.
Heung Yee Kuk chairman Kenneth Lau said on Tuesday that the identity of 'indigenous villagers' did not depend on whether they were Hong Kong residents. Lau was responding to an investigative series by news outlet HK01, which stated that a housing estate in Tuen Mun was built under the names of 17 Malaysian men.
HK01 also interviewed three Malaysian men descended from Hong Kong’s indigenous villagers who admitted to selling their housing rights for profit. One man said all the male members in his extended family sold such rights, with each netting HK$100,000 per transaction."
https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/04/17/indigenous-villagers-housing-privileges-even-theyre-not-hong-kong-residents-says-rural-leader/? - 10,000 village houses built following illegal transfer of land rights, study suggests"A land research group say they have discovered at least 9,878 village houses in the New Territories built after a suspected illegal transfer of land rights. The number represents almost a quarter of the total number of small houses in Hong Kong.The Liber Research Community have published a database of suspicious properties. They examined each property to see whether they were in a village development zone, contained more than three blocks, were three storeys high, shared a similar architectural style, featured an outside wall, and included an estate name and estate management. The researchers considered that houses with such features should originally belong to villagers, but had instead been sold to developers for profit.
Under the Small House Policy, male indigenous villagers who are descendants of a male line from a recognised village may apply to build a small house of up to three storeys high, on either their own land at zero premium or on public land through a private treaty grant, once during their lifetime. However, the right is non-transferable. It is a criminal offence to sell the rights to developers.(...)
Civic Party lawmaker Kwok Ka-ki said the problem has been pointed out by a government audit report in 1987, and the government including Chief Executive Carrie Lam – who was in charge of land development – failed to deal with the issue."
https://www.hongkongfp.com/2018/01/04/revealed-10000-village-houses-built-following-illegal-transfer-land-rights-study-suggests/
Map of suspicious development (Liber Research Community)
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1xJDfYyxrBvyQ0zvBA11ednTkTBk&ll=22.507560039943968%2C114.3399198850866&z=11 - Hong Kong population is set to plateau in 2041, then start decreasing to about current levels in 2070
Census 2016-2066
https://www.censtatd.gov.hk/media_workers_corner/pc_rm/ hkpp2017_2066/index.jsp
https://www.statistics.gov.hk/pub/B1120015072017XXXXB0100. pdf
Flats to be provided as per Business-as-usual (BAU) would be 460,000 by 2027 without any intervention
"In her policy address the chief executive said she would increase the proportion of public housing flats among the target to produce a total of 460,000 flats by 2027"
(https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/2167936/tomorrows-world-hong-kongs-leader-sees-massive)
As its very peak, there will be a need to house 716k more people over current situation as per projected Hong Kong population growth forecasts.
The chart below clearly shows that, in the long-run, the Hong Kong population will decrease and its needs for more land will too.
Source: Hong Kong Government - https://www.censtatd.gov.hk/hkstat/sub/sp190.jsp?productCode=B1120016"The demand for one-way permits is likely to fall substantially as more Hong Kong women have been marrying mainland men in recent years, says Secretary for Labour and Welfare Law Chi-kwong.Given this reversing marriage trend, the city may see a reduction in its population sooner than the government's expectation of 2043, Law wrote on his blog.A more accurate estimation, he added, can be made after the 2021 census.Law said most cross-border marriages in the 1980s had Hong Kong men marrying mainland women, who mostly preferred settling in the SAR." - There are thousands of hectares of abandoned of agricultural land available in the New Territories
- North: 1150 hectares
- Yuen Long: 790h
- Tai Po: 630h
- Sha Thin: 130h
- Tsuen Wan: 90h
- Tsuen Muen: 90h
https://www.legco.gov.hk/research-publications/english/1718issh22-land-supply-and-utilization-in-hong-kong-20180430-e.pdf - Tons of warehouse and open storage land
1.4% (1500 hectares)
https://www.pland.gov.hk/pland_en/info_serv/statistic/landu.html
Comments about the East-Lantau Metropolis:
- The East-Lantau 'paradise islands' will only be ready for the first people to live in, in 2034. It therefore completely is the wrong approach to solve a short-term flat shortage)
Read Tim Hamlet's excellent article on the timeline. - The Hong Kong government/Beijing wants mass mainlanders immigration to grow Hong Kong's population way beyond the forecasted numbers
- Carrie Lam and the Land Task Force did not plan long-term
- The Hong Kong government is in cahoot with the big developers which will build middle-density, very expensive private flats when it is shown that there's no need for all that land
