HONG KONG | Tseung Kwan O Lohas Park Development

[hkskyline]

Site Area - 32.68 ha
# Flats - 21,500
Average Flat Size - 70-80 square m
# Towers - 50
# Stories - 46-57
Retail FGA - 40k-50k square m

Website : http://www.lohaspark.com.hk



Green, green grass of home
Hong Kong Standard
Thursday, November 08, 2007



Here's a new town-planning concept for Hong Kong - MTR Corp's (0066) new residential district in Tseung Kwan O doesn't just have homes; it also incorporates a lifestyle.

The name of the project - LOHAS Park - makes it clear: LOHAS is an acronym for "lifestyle of health and sustainability." It is a combination of personal care and concern for the environment.

"People living here can lead a green life without compromising on quality of life," Steve Yiu Chin, MTRC chief manager for town planning, told The Standard in an interview.

"The place was already designated as an 'environmental protection city' when we began planning in 2002. But after the SARS epidemic in early 2003, we added a slight twist and included an element of 'health' as it is also very important to care for oneself."

Formerly Dream City, it will sit atop the MTR Tseung Kwan O South Station, to be operational in 2009, and just north of the Tseung Kwan O Industrial Estate. The district is a large project, Yiu said, and will accommodate 58,000 residents in the 3.55 million- square-feet site area.

Fifty residential towers will be erected, offering 21,500 apartments, or 36 percent more than Kingswood Villas in Tin Shui Wai, another large-scale development.

The park's key feature will be 1.4 million sq ft of common area with greenery taking up 40 percent area of the whole site, or twice as large as Hong Kong Park in Admiralty.

The common area will include a 200,000 sq ft park and a 330-meter promenad
e overlooking Victoria Harbour.

Although as many as 3,000 trees will be planted in the area, Yiu said, the exciting thing is not only the large proportion of green space, but the way these amenities are situated.

The planning will separate people and cars - pedestrians can walk to various facilities without having to cross a road since all the places are linked with covered walkways.

To encourage walking, distances between different facilities have been carefully calculated, "so that people won't get too tired walking."

Bicycles are also encouraged in the district. "Riders can begin at their own flat, enjoy a scenic ride along the promenade, then park their bikes outside the MTR station and take the train."

The garden will need no fresh water as the developer installed a 440,000-liter water-recyling system to collect rain and household waste water for the plants.

Yiu said the company is studying the feasibility of a kitchen waste processing system in its shopping mall, as an effort to live up to the development's promise of sustainability.

Unlike anything in the New Territories, Yiu pointed out, this projects enables residents to enjoy both a rural environment with lots of greenery but still have the convenience of city living as they will be close to the MTR.

If you are wondering just how "natural" the air ventilation can be in a densely built condominium project, Yiu said buildings will be left with sufficient space to allow wind to blow through. Although the development is not far away from landfill, appropriate town planning should avoid the problem of smell, Yiu said.

LOHAS Park will be divided into nine to 13 phases, which are to be completed between 2009 and 2015.

The first phase, Capitol, is situated on the east side of the project and has 1.38 million sq ft of floor area. Market sources said presale may start as soon as this week. Each of the 1,648 apartments will be sold at above HK$6,000 per sq ft.

[hkskyline]

Lohas Park project will be an oasis in a concrete city
28 November 2007
South China Morning Post

A small city such as Hong Kong has few options for getting close to nature but that will change when the Lohas Park project is built because it will be an oasis of green.

The project is being developed by the MTR Corporation and it will be one of the greenest and most spacious residential projects in Hong Kong. The site, nestled in Clearwater Bay peninsular, will be self-contained with convenient transport such as the future MTR link.

"It will meet the growing demand of Hong Kong people for a healthy and sustainable lifestyle," said Steve Yiu-chin, chief manager - Town Planning of MTR.

"Despite being away from the heart of the city, residents will be able to enjoy the easily accessible transport and the facilities a modern city offers."

The first phase of the 33-hectare park is expected to be completed in 2009, but the whole project will not be ready until 2015. About 40 per cent of the development will be covered with shrubs, trees and plants.

"The park will have well-linked and covered walkways for residents to go to different facilities without having to cross a road. There will also be cycling tracks and bicycles are encouraged in the district. Non-polluting shuttle buses will also be available for residents in the park," he said.

The park's water recycling system will be one of the largest in the territory. A 440,000-litre water recycling system will be installed to collect rain and household waste for watering plants.

[hkskyline]

Green living goes big
An upmarket lifestyle concept is behind MTR Corp's project to build an eco-friendly town, but not everybody is convinced
23 December 2007
South China Morning Post

They may sound like something out of Gulliver's Travels - but Lohasians are big business in the US.

The American non-profit organisation Lohas, which coined the acronym that stands for Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability, claims high-end consumers account for 15 per cent of adults in the United States - or 35 million people.

And their demand for organic products and energy-saving devices has spawned a US$209 billion market that has big mainstream companies like Wal-Mart and Ford Motor Company chasing their business.

The Lohasians, also known as Cultural Creatives, bear hallmarks of the 1960s hippie movement but there is one big difference: they are highly educated, upscale professionals with plenty of money to spend.

The movement began eight years ago in the US and it has now begun to take off in Australia as well as in Japan, where the name has been adopted by stores and coffee shops. In South Korea, it is used to designate imported natural and organic products. Singapore claims the label for being a clean city with good public gardens and Taiwan has a Lohas department store.

And now Hong Kong is getting in on the act with Lohas Park, a giant new housing development targeting the new breed of eco-consumer and believed to be the first of its kind in the world.

The MTR Corporation has dreamed up an "environmentally friendly township" that will be the territory's biggest-ever single development.

The size of a small town, Lohas Park will fit 58,000 residents into a site covering less than 33 hectares in 50 tower blocks of up to 54 storeys. The brownfield development, which will sit above the forthcoming Tseung Kwan O South MTR Station and existing train depot, is bordered by sea and hills on three sides and a landfill site on the fourth.

About 40 per cent of the site - an area twice the size of Hong Kong Park - will be open space, including a 200,000 sq ft Central Park, a 330-metre harbourfront promenade and 3,000 trees.

The vast development, first conceived in 1999, is due for completion in 2015. It is being built in at least nine segments, in partnership with developers who win contracts through bidding and must meet the MTR's design specifications. Cheung Kong (Holdings) has secured the first three phases, of which the first is under construction and due to be completed in 2010. The third phase - worth US$7 billion - was awarded last month.

The segments will fit together to create a giant podium - intersected by roads at ground level and linked by aerial walkways - that has been designed to encourage walking and cycling.

No tower will be more than 10 minutes' walk from the station and each will have its own cycling park and dedicated cycling path.

"On the podium level, these 58,000 people don't have to interact with cars," Steve Yiu Chin, general manager for town planning with the MTR Corporation, says. "They can go to the park, the shopping centre, the station, the schools and the kindergarten without crossing a street.

"It means children and old people can move freely around the site without fear of accidents. And travel to the city takes only about half an hour. That's why we think it will have appeal for these Lohas people.

"We think that this market trend of people caring more about health and sustainability will continue and more and more people will buy into the concept. And Hong Kong is full of part-Lohasians already. We hope that many of them will come to Lohas Park and we can help them to become full Lohasians."

The plot ratio of the complex - a key measure of building density that compares the site's total land area with the gross floor area - is 1:5, well below the maximum of 1:8 for Tseung Kwan O and 1:10 for Hong Kong Island.

Mr Yiu says tests have been carried out in a wind tunnel on a model of Lohas Park in an effort to position the towers to maximise air circulation and reduce the "wall effect" that contributes to higher urban temperatures.

"By stipulating that the tower blocks are between 50 and 54 storeys high, we have been able to provide more open space and parkland," he says. "You can spare more land for open space by going higher. We will design the shopping centre to use natural lighting and we are investigating whether it would be feasible to introduce a composting system for leftover food from the shopping centre to fertilise the gardens.

"And we are investigating whether to require the estate management team to use hybrid cars."

Waste water from some apartments will be recycled for watering the gardens and cleaning the streets, and an air conditioning system cooled by sea water will be installed in the shopping mall to cut energy use. Public areas will be fitted with power-saving lights, such as long-life fluorescent lamps and light-emitting diode exit signs. Appliances fitted in apartments will have to meet Grade I energy efficiency labelling standards.

However, the ratio of parking spaces to households - one to every five to seven apartments - would be similar to other recent MTR developments.

"We have considered including solar panels in the development, but we have not identified any way that we could incorporate them in the plan," Mr Yiu says. "We would like to use wind power, as well, but we haven't made any decision yet."

He says the overall energy saving that will be achieved through the various eco-friendly features at Lohas Park is expected to be about 17 per cent.

Beijing is a signatory to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol and extended the two treaties to Hong Kong in 2003. But as a developing country, China does not have to meet mandatory emission limits and reduction targets, and Hong Kong is treated the same way.

The government has joined the C40 group of cities set up by London Mayor Ken Livingstone that is leading efforts to reduce urban emissions, but this, too, does not bind the city to any firm targets.

In the absence of regulations, therefore, it is up to developers to set their own environmental targets - if they choose.

Local environmental advocates welcome green developments in principle, but question Lohas Park's environmental credentials.

"We welcome a more responsible infrastructure development in Hong Kong," Liam Salter, head of the WWF Hong Kong's climate programme, says.

"We won't solve climate change without changing the way that we plan and build people's homes. The fact that this development encourages walking and the use of public transport is positive. But the crucial question is how energy efficient the apartment blocks themselves are.

"To meet high environmental standards, this development would have to achieve significant improvements in energy efficiency, which means reducing energy consumption in the home.

"An overall energy saving of 17 per cent compared to conventional Hong Kong designs is not ambitious enough. They should be able to cut energy use by at least 30 per cent."

Mr Salter notes that the MTR has not used "the Hong Kong Building Environmental Assessment Method codes at the planning stage to demonstrate the project's environmental credentials".

"The HK-Beam Society recommends that building codes should be used early on in the project cycle so that developers can ensure their projects are genuinely environmentally sound and can improve the design if necessary."

Paul Zimmerman, co-founder of Designing Hong Kong, a non-profit group promoting community involvement in urban planning, says: "It's good that the MTR Corporation is setting an example and I expect other developers will follow suit. But we hope that they can take more aggressive steps to lower energy use.

"It sounds like they are picking the low-hanging fruits and doing things that are fairly easy to achieve.

"And the risk is that people become sceptical about the claims of green developments and then start losing respect for the concept.

"The developers have to take a lead in cutting our greenhouse gas emissions and waste generation because the opportunities available for individuals to cut their carbon footprint in Hong Kong are very much determined by the buildings.

"If you really want to make progress in Hong Kong, it is going to be very questionable whether we can just work with voluntary schemes. I believe this requires legislation."

An MTR spokeswoman says it will be applying in due course for certification under the HK-Beam scheme.

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12/26

[Down_Under_the_El]

That's crazy.. that last picture makes it look like it's in the middle of nowhere.

[Rise To The Top]

where in HK is this (mapwise)?

[hkskyline]

Secondary market deals decline as the Capitol attracts buyers
5 March 2008
South China Morning Post

Transactions in the secondary market dropped significantly last weekend as homebuyers' attention had been drawn to the Capitol, which launched units for sale on Friday.

A total of 373 units changed hands in the 50 key housing estates monitored by Ricacorp Properties, 13.1 per cent fewer week on week. The average transaction prices edged up 0.9 per cent from last week, extending record gains to a 28th consecutive week.

Industry watchers said the government's waiving of property rates of up to HK$5,000 per quarter next financial year had little impact on the market, as the amount waived is minimal.

Nevertheless, demand for housing is very strong amid low interest rates and a buoyant economy, as the sales at Capitol showed.

On Friday and Saturday, Cheung Kong (Holdings) sold almost 2,000 of the 2,096 units in the Tseung Kwan O project at HK$5,100 to HK$5,200 per square foot, allowing the firm to reap almost HK$10 billion from the sales.

The overwhelming response compared to the launch of Park Island Oceancrest in 2002, when Sun Hung Kai Properties sold all 2,000 units in the development in one day.

But developers slowed sales in recent years by offering a limited number of units for sale in several phases in anticipation of the tight supply ahead.

Analysts believe the quick selling may be due to fear of an oversupply.

"Cheung Kong usually sells its project in phases and tunes up prices gradually, but they now sold almost all units in one batch and priced them at similar levels to the secondary market, implying they may be cautious about the outlook," an analyst at an American investment bank said.

He believes a quick sale may relieve pressure that Cheung Kong faces, as it owns the development rights for the second and third phases of Lohas Park which offer an additional 3,700 units.

Cheung Kong also owns Area 85, a plot opposite Lohas Park that is pending settlement of land premiums and could be turned into a residential-commercial project with a gross floor area of about 1.6 million sq ft.

"Cheung Kong needs to boost its sales or prices in the district will be dragged down by oversupply, just like in Tung Chung, where ample supply dampened prices," the analyst said.

Meanwhile, as MTR Corp got a larger share of profits from property sales, Cheung Kong was eager to sell the units even at a low premium to the secondary market to generate cash for future developments, said JP Morgan analyst Raymond Ngai.

Reports say nearly 40 per cent of the buyers purchased their flats through construction phase payment terms, compared with about 20 per cent in general, implying speculators could be at play, analysts said.

Under the terms, buyers only need to settle 20 per cent of the price in four instalments until the issuance of occupation permits - expected to be in the second quarter of 2009 - but housing prices are 5 per cent higher than the normal terms that require buyers to settle the deal within 1½ months.

Property agents said about 120 units of the Capitol were available in the secondary market at prices 10 to 15 per cent higher.

[MolsonExport]

The scale of HK construction and density is just staggering.

[Kwik-E-Mart]

Are there going to be employment areas within Tseung Kwan O? HK certainly does not want a repeat of Tin Shui Wai!

At least authorities and developers have taken lessons from the nearby Po Lam and Hang Hau and addressed the "panel effect" by leaving enough gaps for air to flow through.

[hkskyline]

Originally Posted by Kwik-E-Mart

Are there going to be employment areas within Tseung Kwan O? HK certainly does not want a repeat of Tin Shui Wai!

At least authorities and developers have taken lessons from the nearby Po Lam and Hang Hau and addressed the "panel effect" by leaving enough gaps for air to flow through.

TKO is destined to be dense, and Lohas Park's layout isn't much of an exception. There is an industrial estate south of the site, home to media companies such as TVB, but I doubt they'll be a major employment source for residents. Hong Kong isn't an industrial city anyway.

[hkskyline]

Police and building workers clash at rally
11 April 2008
South China Morning Post

Construction workers at the Lohas Park residential project in Tseung Kwan O scuffled with police yesterday during a protest against contractors accused of owing them nearly HK$2 million.

About 50 workers tried to block Wan Po Road outside the site. Police blocked the workers from rushing into traffic and tried to calm them.

Worker Tsang Wai-wah said one of the contractors had changed attendance records to cut their salaries for February and last month. "My attendance record was cut by three days, which means I will not be paid for my work on those days. My loss is about HK$1,000," he said.

Mr Tsang said workers had held at least five protests demanding their money. A colleague who gave his name as Mr Chan said he had not taken any sick leave in those two months but had been paid for just one day.

"I worked every day in those two months. But the contractor's attendance record shows I worked just one day each month," he said. "I should have HK$20,000 for each month, but the contractor paid me just HK$600."

The workers later marched to the office of the project's developer, Cheung Kong (Holdings), in Central demanding that chairman Li Ka-shing help them recover their money. A representative promised to forward a letter from the workers to Mr Li.

A meeting between the contractors and workers was arranged at the Labour Department office in Kwun Tong at noon. Some subcontractors complained they were unable to pay the wages because the main contractor, Able Engineering, owed them more than HK$7 million. Able Engineering proposed that it would directly pay the workers HK$600 a day, based on attendance record. But the offer was refused by the workers, who insisted on the original monthly wage they were promised.

The workers' representatives are scheduled to meet the commissioner for labour this morning.

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[NYC4Life]

Such incredible isolation for a group of towers.

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[colemonkee]

What's the construction site in the foreground?

[hkskyline]

Originally Posted by colemonkee

What's the construction site in the foreground?

I believe it's services - police & fire station.

[hkskyline]

Source : http://www.pbase.com/specialteam/devils_hill

9/4

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By 鄧麗欣之戀 from skyscrapers.cn :

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MTR delays tender after Tsang stresses market-driven supply
Hong Kong Standard
Thursday, October 16, 2008

MTR Corporation (0066) has put back a tender scheduled for the end of this year, for the fourth phase of the Lohas Park development in Tseung Kwan O, after Chief Executive Donald Tsang said the government will not "sell land way below market prices."

The company, Hong Kong's largest landlord after the government, expects to tender for the project next year. It will not launch any more projects this year, an MTRC spokeswoman said yesterday.

The government will not dump land on the market to spur economic growth despite the financial crisis facing Hong Kong, Tsang said in his policy address. "The government and government-owned statutory bodies will not indiscriminately supply residential or commercial land," Tsang said. "Neither will we sell land way below market prices."

He stressed that market-driven land supply and repositioned housing policy over the past six years have rebuilt confidence in the property market.

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Source : http://www.flickr.com/photos/yeungheilam/2633618406/