The housing blues in Hong Kong

Eddie Hui

Professor, Department of Building and Real Estate, Hong Kong Polytechnic University

It is the right time to review the long term housing strategy since it has not been reviewed for many years.

In devising long term strategy, the steering committee should consider many aspects, including the changing social situation, housing demands of different parts of the community (including the young people, the elderly and those living in poor conditions (such as sub-divided units, partitioned units, cage houses).

It is necessary to set priorities. Whilst the government can dominate public housing output, it can calculate the number of available private housing flats through land auctions and such special conditions for specified sites (with the areas and prices of flats fixed).

We should devise a construction target and set priorities as to which group(s) will first be provided public housing.

At present there are nearly 200,000 households waiting for public rental units. To fulfill the government's service pledge of housing allocation within three years (two years for elderly), how many flats do we need? With a yearly output of 15,000 flats, we need 13.3 years to come to the end of the queue if things remain unchanged.

So we may ask the government to build more public rental units and build faster. We should first set out the strategy. Then we should estimate the demand for housing, set the construction targets and then identify sites for construction.

One new trend worth noting is the big increase in the number of one-member families, as well as young, single applicants and undergraduates with no income. Together, they account for about one-third of public housing applicants.

Our traditional concept of a family, is that it comprises two or more members. If young people apply for public housing as single applicants, the number of applicants will rise significantly.

Public housing is an invaluable resource, and opinions at large, are against young people applying for public housing. Whether young people should be given priority is a question for the government.

If they are refused public housing, they may become a source of anger or social instability. If they are offered public housing, resources for other groups will decrease.

The terms of reference of the Steering Committee does not include land supply. Although this does not seriously handicap our work, I would have liked to see housing, planning and lands portfolios grouped under one policy bureau. But Chief Executive CY Leung's reorganization proposal was dragged down by filibustering in the Legislative Council.