Call for consultations to be cut in homes race

A think tank has called on the government to cut down public consultation on housing developments so it can build public flats faster.

The suggestions were made by Our Hong Kong Foundation yesterday, with researchers calling on the government to streamline procedures so that waiting times for public housing could be shortened from almost six years to under four years.

The think tank said since the Long-Term Housing Strategy report was published in 2013, the government has fallen short of the housing supply target set out in the report by a total of 120,000 flats.

Therefore, the think tank said, the government should add the shortage onto the housing supply target of 180,000 flats from 2021 to 2025. This means the government will have to supply 300,000 flats by 2025.

Its top researcher for land and housing, Ryan Ip, said that in order to supply an extra 120,000 flats within the short period of time, the government has to cut "red tapes" and streamline the land development process.

By reducing the number of consultations and scaling down the environmental impact assessment reports, the government will be able to expedite public housing production.

"Ordinarily for large-scale [new town] developments there are three rounds of public consultations, it takes at least three years," he said in an online press conference.

"The ideal way of doing this is to have one round of consultation, and that consultation has to be thorough, comprehensive and large-scale enough," he said.

The think tank had proposed 23 suggestions, among which Ip suggested reducing the time for environmental impact assessment investigations.

"For large-scale development projectswe advocate the government commencing the detailed designs, land resumption, and site formation works of each phase in parallel," Ip said.

He added that the government should proceed with reclamation works and town planning procedures simultaneously when dealing with reclamation projects, instead of preparing the Outline Zoning Plan for superstructure development first before commencing reclamation.

On the other hand, the think tank also suggested the government review ecological values of country parks and green belts and use those which fail to meet the criteria for building homes.

It said country parks and green belts take up 67 percent of the total land area of the SAR, which is far more than London and Singapore.

"Currently, much of the 1,000 hectares of the Wetland Buffer Area has lost their original ecological function," the report said.

"Therefore, we suggest the government expeditiously review the planning for the Wetland Buffer Area, taking into account the need to balance conservation and development."