Repeated planning applications by developers under statutory zoning: A Hong Kong case study of delays and design improvements in private residential development

Abstract

Delays in obtaining development approvals have been advanced as a major reason for shortages if not also increase in cost of housing. This paper is the first systematic attempt to examine whether the apparently long period of time taken to obtaining statutory planning permissions by developers for major development projects under Comprehensive Development Area (CDA) zoning is due to Town Planning Board rejections or developers' strategy to hoard land or improve building design. Publicly available Town Planning Board data obtained from the Planning Department, property transaction records kept by the Land Registry, property market statistics released by the Rating and Valuation Department and macro-economic data from the Census and Statistics Department are used to find out the number of planning applications and time taken for a real estate project in a CDA zone involving residential components to start construction from the date of the first valid planning application as the means to ascertain if any delay in development was due to business innovation in building design to cater to sustainable development; or strategic behaviour to hoard land.

Urban Growth in a Mediterranean Island-State: A Data-Driven Study of Malta’s Development Permits in the Last Thirty Years

“…Yu and Hui [46] noted that following the reunification of Hong Kong with mainland China, there was an increased leniency in permits granted for residences within the 'Government, Institution, or Community' (GIC) zone and the Green Belt. Lai et al [47] studied the trend of repeat applications. It was shown that there was no major innovation in the design of the project, hinting that a repeat application can be a strategic business decision to commit a site for development and prolong the permitted development from being developed.…”

“…On the other hand, sanctioning applications did not permit new developments but regularised illegalities and structures that had already been developed. The omission of these types of applications can be considered as a limitation of the study; nonetheless, the use of the same text-mining approach provides the basis for future studies related to repeat applications [47] or the sanctioning of illegalities in development. A weighting between the different keywords was also introduced following observations of descriptors in development-planning applications.…”

Accelerated planning for urban housing infills: coordination strategies

“…Collecting data from housing projects in southern England, Ball (2011) noted that planning for small sites appeared to be particularly time-intensive. In a Hong Kong context, the question was asked by Lai et al (2016) whether the long period of time for obtaining planning permissions could be explained by planning board rejections or developer strategies to hoard land or improve design. Explaining their model of the Chinese Urban Speed Machine, Chien and Woodworth (2018) concentrate on incentives rather than mechanisms of coordination, despite reporting fragmented bureaucracies; their description implies ruthless top-down coordination, and they assert that municipal economic development bureaus have a stronger position than municipal planning bureaus.…”

Taxing land rent, lowering other taxes – the case of Hong Kong

“…2. It should be acknowledged that where and how to supply developable land, the particular uses of each parcel of land supplied and the infrastructure that supports such supply are planning problems that cannot be dealt with here. Interested readers can refer to Lai et al (2016) and Lai and Chau (2019).…”