Two residential sites in Wan Chai and Sai Ying Pun that can together deliver 270 flats are set to be sold via tender in the next quarter.
The price of the Wan Chai site, which is presently the Lui Kee Education Services Centre, is expected to be HK$1.74 billion or HK$15,000 per square foot, said James Cheung, executive director at Centaline Surveyors.
And government officials said 13 plots in the next financial year's land sale program will provide about 8,250 units.
Four commercial sites, involving a total of about 296,800 square meters, will also be launched.
Together with the redevelopment of the Tung Chung traction substation under the MTR Corp (0066), which is an Urban Renewal Authority project, a total of 2,070 homes are expected to be provided in the next quarter.
Secretary for Development Michael Wong Wai-lun also said a minimum size requirement of about 280 square feet will from today apply to all applications for lease modifications and land exchanges for redevelopment unless a site's dimensions would make it unreasonable to impose such a requirement.
He also said that feedback from the community for the size requirement was quite positive after officials mandated the requirement for the first time to a residential site in Tuen Mun in last year's land sale program.
And since the supply of most "nano flats" came from redevelopment rather than government land sales, Wong added, he believed the amendment is reasonable.
Also, he said, only just over 10 percent of new flats built over the past few years had a saleable area of less than 280 sf.
Source: The Standard