Better utilisation of slopes to build more public housing flats (with photos)
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To meet the community's demand for public housing, the Hong Kong Housing Authority (HA) spares no effort in making good use of every piece of land for public housing development by adopting the principles of optimising utilisation of land resources, maximising cost-effectiveness and maintaining sustainable development. One feasible method is to make better use of slopes in development sites by converting them for recreational uses or green space, thus increasing the net site area and flat production at the same time.
The Deputy Director of Housing (Development and Construction), Ms Ada Fung, said today (April 16) that many public housing construction sites are small with the presence of large slopes, making the site conditions rather complicated. One example is the site of the subsidised sale flats development at Texaco Road in Kwai Chung, where slopes occupy about half of the site.
"Our site formation works involves not only cutting into hills and blasting rocks, we also cut the slopes adjoining the public housing blocks to facilitate the construction of landscape decks to provide recreational space for tenants' use. By adopting this measure, those areas that used to be occupied by slopes can be taken into account in the calculation of the net site area and more flats can be built accordingly," Ms Fung said.
In the case of the subsidised sale flats development at Texaco Road, while its gross site area is about 4 600 square metres, the original net site area upon which the housing block can be built is only about 2 460 square metres. By adopting the above-mentioned method of slope utilisation, the net site area is increased by 1 050 square metres, and flat production is increased from 350 flats to about 500 flats.
"The technical requirements and degree of difficulty vary with conditions of each site. We will try different methods to overcome the difficulties to boost housing supply," Ms Fung said.
She said where planning and infrastructure permit and where environmental quality will not be compromised to an unacceptable extent, the HA will seek to increase public housing production through planning applications to the Town Planning Board for relaxation of plot ratios and building height restrictions for public housing sites.
Ends/Sunday, April 16, 2017
Issued at HKT 15:00
Issued at HKT 15:00
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