Duplicating procedures in land development should be streamlined while some of the process should start simultaneously to cut short the process time by half, lawmaker Edward Lau Kwok-fan says. In a press briefing on Sunday, Lau from the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong said amending the law to cut “red tapes” as current land development procedures are too complicated. He therefore proposed the government combine multiple consultations into two to expedite the land development process. “When we are developing these mega development plans, we can actually just do two rounds of public consultations,” Lau said. He also suggested improving the compensation mechanism to reduce conflicts and step up flexibility in planning land usage, including implementing a “white zone” land use -- allowing the market instead of the government to decide the usage of the land plot.

Source: The Standard January 16, 2022 13:12 UTC