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Following is the transcript of remarks by the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mrs Carrie Lam, at a media session today (September 20):
Reporter: Mrs Lam, how would you allay concerns that North East New Territories ...?
Chief Secretary for Administration: I think most of the concerns and the criticisms that have been expressed recently in some media are totally unfounded. The North East NT study is one of those very conventional studies to increase land supply to meet the future housing needs of our local population. These stem from the Hong Kong 2030 vision study launched and completed in 2007 when I was the Secretary for Development. So in the last three or four years, the Planning Department under the steer of the Development Bureau has been taking forward this land use planning study that is entirely for meeting the housing and other needs of the Hong Kong population. And of course I hear that some people are concerned about the public housing and private housing mix, and I must point out that this was because when we first brought the study to the Legislative Council and into the public domain, there was a very strong body of opinion that they do not want to see a repeat of Tin Shui Wai New Town, which was predominated by public rental housing.
As you all know, in the northern part of Tin Shui Wai New Town, over 80 per cent of the housing units are public rental housing units, so there was this very strong idea that in the new development areas we should have a good mix of public housing and private housing. But of course the current composition was decided when there was no HOS policy. Now that we have decided to resume building Home Ownership Scheme flats, I believe there is scope for increasing the percentage of the public housing for rental, for sale to local population.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Thursday, September 20, 2012
Issued at HKT 17:30
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