Hong Kong earmarks Kai Tak site among 3 plots for private student hostel projects

A prime site in the newly developed Kai Tak area, along with two other plots, have been earmarked for the development of tertiary student hostels, Hong Kong authorities have announced.A spokesman for the Development Bureau said on Tuesday that three commercial sites – in Kai Tak, Siu Lek Yuen in Sha Tin and Tung Chung East – would be open for expressions of interest from the market and could go on sale as early as the next financial year.“Subject to the response received from this expression of interest exercise, the government can make available one or more of the three sites supporting student hostel development for land sale through open tender in 2026-27 at the earliest,” the spokesman said.Housing capacity for tertiary students in Hong Kong has become a growing concern in recent years, as the number of non-local students continues to rise while dormitory places fail to keep pace with demand.Statistics from the Education Bureau show that the city’s eight publicly funded universities had more than 103,000 students in full-time undergraduate and postgraduate research programmes in the 2024-25 academic year, including 26,476 non-locals.However, the universities offered only about 40,600 hostel places, marking a 15 per cent increase over the past decade.While the bureau said bed spaces are expected to reach around 50,000 over the next few years with the addition of new dormitories and the renovation of existing hostels, demand is also projected to rise, as the quota for non-local enrolments at publicly funded institutions was doubled from 20 per cent to 40 per cent of local student numbers.