STDM’s idle plots to revert back to the MSAR

The illuminated STDM logo

The government has made a move to take back four idle land plots, according to yesterday’s Official Gazette announcement. Two of those plots had been granted to Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau (STDM).
Since 1990, Stanley Ho’s company had rights to develop a land parcel located close to the School of the Nations in Taipa, where it planned to erect two buildings, one of which was to be 22 storeys tall. The land plot was granted in 1990 and STDM had three years to develop it.
The other STDM plot that is now reverting to government ownership is a smaller one at Penha Hill where the construction of a three-storey home was planned.
According to TDM, the biggest of all the land parcels now being taken back is one covering most of the area next to the Taipa Houses-Museum. Granted in 1990 to a company linked to developer Ho On Chun, the plot was supposed to be developed into a shopping mall, a film studio and an outdoors  theater, but the project never got off the ground. The fourth reverted plot was granted in 1993 to developers of a steel and porcelain factory close to the wastewater treatment plant in Pac On.
Since 2011, authorities have pledged to look into taking back 48 land parcels that remain undeveloped. However, controversy erupted last June when 16 idle land plots where excluded from the government’s recovery list.
According to the Chief Executive, the exclusions were made following legal and administrative procedures. He justified the exemption based on the assumption that development of the 16 plots was hindered by reasons such as changes in the location’s urban planning or in the plot’s purpose of use.
The administration has canceled land grants over 18 plots so far this year.