West Kowloon arts hub plans to raise funds with residential development
Hong Kong Free Press
Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District has said it planned to build some 2,000 residential flats, the sale of which would help fund the cash-strapped arts hub.
In a document submitted to the Yau Tsim Mong District Council’s housing and development planning committee on Monday, the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA) said it hoped to build seven housing blocks with 1,995 residential flats on a plot spanning 20,000 square metres.
The arts hub’s managing authority said it intended to submit an application for planning permission to the Town Planning Board within the first quarter of 2025.
The authority in 2023 said that a HK$21.6 billion government endowment, approved in 2008, was expected to run out by March, and proposed “making good use of its land resources” to shore up its finances.
Hong Kong’s top political advisory body, the Executive Council, last July greenlit a plan for the arts hub to sell land parcels for residential development, with the WKCDA keeping the proceeds from private developers.
According to its annual report, the district recorded a deficit of more than HK$1.33 billion in the 2023-24 fiscal year, down from the previous year’s HK$1.35 billion shortfall.
Residential project, property downturn
The proposed development located south of Austin Road West will offer a gross residential floor area of 108,500 square metres, with an additional 26,000 square metres of ancillary retail, catering, and leisure facilities and a three-storey basement, according to the WKCDA submission.
The WKCDA also proposed walkways and entrances connecting the residential buildings with the Kowloon MTR station nearby and the Elements shopping mall.
“This will facilitate the use of public transport by the public and visitors to the WKCD and reduce the traffic impact on the area,” the authority’s submission read.
The authority also said that all technical assessments, including impact assessments on landscape, traffic, noise, and air quality indicated that the project was technically feasible with no insurmountable adverse impacts.
The proposal comes amid a property market slump that has hampered Hong Kong developers’ appetite for land.
See also: Hong Kong redevelopment body signs HK$13 billion bank loan amid deficit
Developers have been “cautious” in bidding for sites, development minister Bernadette Linn said on Tuesday, announcing that a single land parcel would be put up for tender in the final quarter of the fiscal year.
Linn said the government had brought in HK$4.3 billion in land sales revenue so far, some 13 per cent of the HK$33 billion estimated in last February’s budget speech.
The sole land offering will be the government’s second go at selling a Tung Chung plot. Taking the recent market environment, the MTR Corporation’s successful tender of a nearby site, and a gradual completion of a public housing project into account, the government said it was “appropriate” time to include the site in the final quarter’s land sale programme.
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