CE visits On Tai Estate
10.6.2021

The Chief Executive, Mrs Carrie Lam, today (June 10), accompanied by the Secretary for Transport and Housing, Mr Frank Chan Fan, visited On Tai Estate at On Sau Road, Kwun Tong, which was located in a site which was formerly the Anderson Road Quarry, to learn more about the environmental protection considerations of the Housing Department in building public housing in recent years, and the progress of various development plans of the site. Mrs Lam and officials visited On Tai Estate, which was planned and built with concepts of sustainable development and community engagement. With a greening ratio over 30 per cent, the estate has plenty of environmental friendly and green installations, and many of the facilities feature art, the quarry's history, and education elements. It won the Grand Award of the Hong Kong Residential (Multiple Buildings) Category of the Quality Building Award 2020, and the "Sustainable Construction" Bronze Award of the Construction Industry Council in 2019. The environmental friendly facilities viewed by Mrs Lam included solar pipes, which re-direct natural daylight to designated areas, a green acoustic barrier and walkways, a planting area equipped with the Zero Irrigation System and the oasis void in the car park. She also visited the outdoor exhibition gallery, which showcases the history of the Anderson Road Quarry and various precious natural resources therein, and its observation deck, an exhibit of an old machine part used at the quarry and other artworks. She was pleased to note that innovative technology of 5D BIM (Building Information Modeling) was applied and prefabrication was widely used in the design and construction of On Tai Estate to enhance efficiency, promote environment protection, reduce construction time and more, which is a good example of a works project. Mrs Lam and officials had a bird's eye view of the Anderson Road Quarry site from the rooftop of a building at On Tai Estate and received a briefing on the progress of the relevant development project. The development of the Anderson Road Quarry site project, which is currently in progress, covers 11 housing sites. Eight of them are for public housing development (including five sites by the Hong Kong Housing Authority and three sites by the Hong Kong Housing Society). Another two sites have been successfully sold for private housing development and the remaining one has been reserved for the pilot project of the second Starter Homes for Hong Kong Residents (Starter Homes) development, which is the first time the Government enlisted the participation of developers in building and selling Starter Homes units through land sale. Starter Homes is part of the efforts of the current-term Government to rebuild the housing ladder for the higher-income families, which are not eligible for the Home Ownership Scheme and yet cannot afford private housing, to become homeowners at a specific discount rate. The first Starter Homes pilot project was eResidence, rolled out by the Urban Renewal Authority, which received overwhelming support by qualified families at its sale. "The architectural design of On Tai Estate is outstanding. I believe that residents are satisfied with the living environment. I applaud the efforts of colleagues of the Hong Kong Housing Authority and the Housing Department in building a quality living environment for members of the public. "I announced in my 2020 Policy Address that with the efforts over the years, we have identified all of the land required for providing public housing units to meet the demand in the coming 10 years, with the re-allocation of sites at the Anderson Road Quarry for public housing development being one of the sources of supply. The current-term Government will continue to spare no effort to provide land with a multi-pronged approach and roll out various short-, medium- and long-term initiatives to increase land supply to strive to provide suitable housing for families in different income brackets," Mrs Lam said. Ends/Thursday, June 10, 2021 Issued at HKT 22:50 NNNN