HONG KONG -- A top Hong Kong developer wants to build a multibillion-dollar luxury housing complex on land it lent the city for a COVID-19 facility, triggering concerns it will threaten a wildlife habitat and do little to ease housing shortages.
Sun Hung Kai Properties (SHKP) described the site where the now-closed virus isolation center was built as a "wasteland" with little ecological value. It also cited Hong Kong's perennial housing crunch among the reasons to approve its application for a sprawling development of nearly 10,000 apartments in 36 residential towers with swimming pools and clubhouses, hundreds of parking spots and a retail space.