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URA Issues Acquisition Offers to Property Owners of Kau Pui Lung Road / Chi Kiang Street Development Scheme

The Urban Renewal Authority (URA) today (3 February 2025) issued acquisition offers to property owners of its Kau Pui Lung Road / Chi Kiang Street Development Scheme (the Project*), the second pilot project in Kowloon City to redevelop buildings under the Civil Servants’ Co-operative Building Society (CBS) Scheme. 

The redevelopment of CBS buildings involves a range of processes, including the dissolution of CBSs, modification of the Government lease, assigning flats to ex-CBS members, and setting up owners’ corporations by ex-CBS members.  Upon acquiring the titles of the CBS flats, the ex-CBS members are obliged to pay land premium to the Government to remove the alienation restrictions before their flats can be disposed in the open market.  The URA will acquire the CBS properties after the completion of all of the above-mentioned processes.

In view of the complexity, the URA, in collaboration with relevant Government Departments and the Hong Kong Housing Society, launched in 2021 new initiatives to facilitate the acquisition of CBS properties, which include:

  1. Providing free legal service to facilitate the dissolution of the CBS;
  2. Facilitating the Government to adopt “existing use land value” of old CBS buildings as the basis in assessing the amount of land premium;
  3. Introducing a levelling adjustment to align the rate of the premium per square foot to be paid by ex-CBS members.  The lowest unit rate of the premium per square foot assessed by the Lands Department for all residential properties with outstanding premium in the Project will be adopted as the reference rate.  Any amount payable to the Government above the reference rate will be borne by the URA;
  4. Facilitating the waiving arrangement of the administrative fee for the removal of alienation restriction;
  5. Implementing special arrangement for eligible ex-CBS members to purchase replacement flat, having considered that a portion of the acquisition compensation may need to be used to settle the land premium to remove alienation restrictions.  The special arrangement includes allowing ex-CBS members to purchase the subsidised sale flats of dedicated rehousing estates to be developed and managed by the Hong Kong Housing Society as an alternative option to the “Flat-for-Flat” units and “Kai Tak Development” units provided by the URA.  Flexibility will be given to enable eligible ex-CBS members to purchase a maximum of any two flats from the three replacement options.

The Project involved a total of 28 CBSs.  At the time when URA commenced the Project, nine of them have yet to be dissolved.  Since July 2022, members of these nine CBSs have gradually completed the dissolution processes, obtained the property titles of their flats and became the owners of the properties. The last ex-CBS member completed the procedures in January 2025. 

In accordance with standard procedures, the URA appointed seven independent consultancy firms, selected by open ballot, to assess a “Notional Unit Rate” for the acquisition offer of the Project.  The assessments were conducted in January 2025 by comparing transaction records of nearby domestic properties that had similar characteristics and access to public transport as the Project, to form the Notional Unit Rate of a seven-year-old notional replacement flat situated in the same locality.  The Land, Rehousing and Compensation Committee (LRCC) of the URA Board has earlier approved the Notional Unit Rate. 

Eligible owner-occupiers of the Project will be offered $15,385 per square foot of saleable area for the flat under acquisition.  Except for a few who have already removed the alienation restrictions from the leases, the majority of these owner-occupiers will need to settle the premium to do so.  Given that the reference rate of premium adopted for this Project has been set at $1,177 per square foot, these owner-occupiers will receive $14,208 per square foot of saleable area for their flats.

The property owners of the 466 interests involved will have 60 days to consider the URA’s offers.  Upon acceptance of offers by the owners and completion of the property acquisition, the URA will offer ex-gratia allowance for all eligible tenants or rehousing arrangements for the eligible domestic tenants in lieu of ex-gratia allowance.

The URA will arrange briefing sessions for the affected ex-CBS member and owners to explain the acquisition and rehousing arrangements, and to provide assistance to those who have yet to pay premium in handling the processes of premium payment.  Meanwhile, a subject officer will be assigned for each case.  Appointed by the Urban Renewal Fund, a social service team staffed by professional social workers from Hong Kong Lutheran Social Service (Tel.: 3596 6850) will provide assistance to ex-CBS members and residents in need.

* Please click here for the Project details

 

(ENDS)