HK announces 3 pilot areas of land disposal in Northern Metropolis

Each pilot area covers private residential, industry, and public facility sites.

The government has announced the details of the three pilot areas of large-scale land disposal in the Northern Metropolis.

The three pilot areas under large-scale land disposal are located in the Hung Shui Kiu/Ha Tsuen New Development Area, the Fanling North New Development Area, and the San Tin Technopole, of about 12.5 hectares (ha), 15.9 ha, and 18.6 ha, respectively.

Each pilot area covers private residential, industry, and public facility sites.

Developers must carry out site formation and engineering infrastructure works for all the sites, retain the residential sites for development, and hand other sites back to the government for management after constructing some public facilities such as roads and open space.

The requirements on industry sites vary across the pilot areas, including the developers retaining certain sites to construct and operate an enterprise and technology park building, requiring developers to construct an industry building and then hand it back to the government, and some only requiring the developers to carry out site formation.

One of the focus areas of the expression of interest exercise set for next month is to invite the market to propose innovative and practical ideas and to suggest how developers can leverage the large-scale land disposal approach to enable their in-depth and substantial participation in developing industry sites to promote industry development in the Northern Metropolis.

Moreover, the government will launch a three-month exercise in December this year to invite interested parties to submit expressions of interest for the three pilot areas of large-scale land disposal to finalise the tender details and conditions later.

In the 2024 Policy Address, the Chief Executive introduced a pilot large-scale land disposal approach, where sizable land parcels with commercial value for public facilities will be selected and granted to successful bidders for collective development.

This complements the enhanced conventional new town approach, which allows landowners to participate in the development of new development areas through in-situ land exchanges.

This approach enhances enterprises' participation in important development for Hong Kong. It can speed up the development of the land parcels and reduce the government's financial outlay.

The government targets to commence the tendering work for the three pilot areas from 2025 to 2026.