More Land Won't Bring Home Prices Down: Poll

Home prices will not return to an affordable level even if the government is able to find more land for housing, according to the majority of people who took part in a survey conducted by Greenpeace.

The environmental activists spoke to about 1,000 people over the phone between 26 April and 4 May and 60 percent of the respondents said they don't believe more land will bring down flat prices.

More than 90 percent of them felt the current level of house prices is more than the general public can afford.

The survey comes as the government is consulting the public on various ways to increase land supply to boost housing development.

A Greenpeace campaigner, Andy Chu, said land reclamation and building on the fringes of country parks may seem like easy options, but the government should be doing more to better utilise existing land, like brownfield sites.

Rather than making some irreversible changes to our natural resources, we should have a basic principle as to which kind of land we should use first, Chu said at the event held to release the survey results.

Former lawmaker Edward Yiu, who was also present, said the government should go beyond its current cooling measures to curb speculation.

Yiu, who is also a founder of the Real Estate Development and Building Research and Information Centre, said he has been advocating a new plan called "cooperative housing", with such homes meant for local people and not subject to speculation by international investors.