URA lowers compensation for second Kowloon City pilot

Staff reporter

The Urban Renewal Authority has proposed to offer HK$15,385 per square foot to eligible property owners of the Kau Pui Lung Road/Chi Kiang Street Development Scheme Plan, 22 percent lower than a nearby project proposed in 2021.

This is the second pilot project in Kowloon City to redevelop buildings under the Civil Servants' Co-operative Building Society Scheme, following the Shing Tak Street/Ma Tau Chung Road Development Project, which offered acquisition proposals to owners at HK$19,848 per sq ft.

The redevelopment involves dissolving CBSs, modifying government leases, assigning flats to former CBS members, and establishing owners' corporations.

Given that the reference rate of premium adopted for this project has been set at HK$1,177 per sq ft, these owner-occupiers will receive HK$14,208 per sq ft of saleable area for their flats.

The project involves 466 property interests, and owners will have 60 days to consider the URA's offers.

The scheme covers an area of approximately 177,315 sq ft, with a total floor area of about 1.5 million sq ft, of which the residential portion accounts for around 1.3 million sq ft, according to URA data.

The URA targets completion by 2033.

The authority announced on January 26 that it will adopt dynamic management to adjust the pace of acquisitions for different redevelopment projects.

Factors under consideration include the scale and complexity of the project acquisitions, as well as the engineering involved.