For office tenants
Can this unit legally be your office?
Many of Hong Kong's cheaper offices are in industrial buildings — where office use depends on the zoning and on what the Town Planning Board has approved. Before a three-year lease, check the planning approvals on the site, the lifts, the building's age and its records.
What the map checks for you
Zoning and planning approvals
27,198 applications
The statutory zone, and planning applications on the site — 'Office Use', industrial-office conversions, 'Shop and Services' — with the decision.
Show on the mapLifts
74,444 lifts
Passenger lifts on record for the building, from EMSD use permits — what your staff queue for at 9 am.
Show on the mapBuilding records
6,540 bldgs on record
Buildings Department orders and mandatory inspections on record for the building.
Show on the mapBuilding age
Age from the occupation permit. Older blocks mean mandatory inspections and repair levies passed on through the management fee.
Show on the mapStaff commute
629 MTR exits
Walking distance to the nearest MTR exit, and what's around the building.
Show on the mapOffice rents by district
The Rating and Valuation Department's average office rents by grade and district, shown on each building's card — a benchmark, not a valuation.
Show on the map
A real example: Kader Building, 22 Kai Cheung Road, Kowloon Bay
An industrial building in Kowloon Bay's business area. This is what the planning and building records show.
- Planning applications on the site
- 3 — latest: A/K13/122 Office Use, approved 1997
- Lifts (EMSD permits)
- 9
- Age
- 40 years
- Storeys
- 13
- Buildings Department records
- unauthorised works removal order
- Owners' corporation
- None found in the Land Registry index
9 of 117 buildings within 300 m also have Buildings Department orders on record.
- Approved 'Office Use' applications on the site answer the planning half of the question. Whether a particular unit may be used as an office also depends on its occupation permit and the lease — check both before signing.
- Industrial buildings can be subject to fire-safety directions and to action against non-industrial uses. Ask the landlord for the unit's approved use in writing.
Source: Town Planning Board Planning Applications Considered by the Town Planning Board (quarterly) · Electrical and Mechanical Services Department Statutory Orders and Notices under the Lifts and Escalators Ordinance (daily) · Buildings Department Statutory Orders issued on unauthorised building works of the buildings (monthly) · Buildings Department Statutory Notices issued on prescribed inspection/repair for buildings (monthly) · Buildings Department Statutory Notices issued on prescribed inspection/repair for windows (monthly) · Buildings Department Completed new buildings for which occupation permits have been issued (monthly) · Land Registry Index of Owners' Corporations (OC) (monthly) · Rating and Valuation Department Property Market Statistics — Private Domestic (monthly) · retrieved by KongInsight 31 Aug 2026
What the map won't tell you — and where to look
Management fee and air-con hours
Not public data. Ask the management office; after-hours air-con is often charged separately.
A unit's permitted use under the lease
The government lease and occupation permit decide it — Land Registry and the Buildings Department.
Asking rents
Agents and listing sites. The RVD average is a benchmark for the district, not for this floor.
Floor plans
Approved plans can be viewed at the Buildings Department's BRAVO for HK$36.
Check the building before the lease
Search the address, tap the building, read the planning record and the lifts.