Hong Kong’s rainbow-coloured Choi Hung Estate redevelopment to take 15 years, with 24% increase in flats
Hong Kong Free Press
The redevelopment of a 60-year-old public housing estate in Hong Kong known for its rainbow-coloured façade is expected to take 15 years and will be expanded to provide more flats, the government has announced.
After redevelopment, the housing estate will provide 9,200 units, a 24-per cent increase from the current number of units at Choi Hung Estate, housing minister Winnie Ho announced on Thursday as the government endorsed a proposal for a redevelopment study.
“The study will further explore the potential of making good use of the build-back potential upon redevelopment of Choi Hung Estate. An implementation plan will be further worked out,” Ho said in Cantonese after meeting a planning committee under the Housing Authority, the city’s public housing operator.
The redevelopment was first announced last month.
See also: HKFP Lens: Inside Hong Kong’s rainbow-coloured Choi Hung Estate ahead of expected redevelopment
The redevelopment will be split into three phases, Ho told reporters. “Initially, our estimate is that about 9,200 flats could be provided upon redevelopment, representing a net gain of about 1,800 flats,” she added.
Relocation
The first batch of residents of about 2,500 households at Choi Hung Estate will be relocated to Mei Tung Estate, a half-hour walk or 20-minute bus ride away.
The 2,860 homes at Mei Tung Estate, which according to government records is itself under redevelopment, would be sufficient to rehouse the first batch of residents, Ho added. The new flats at Mei Tung Estate are slated for completion in 2027/28.
She added that many units at Mei Tung Estate were single-person flats, which would meet the needs of residents living in some 20 percent of flats at Choi Hung Estate, but did not say which of the estate’s 11 blocks of around 7,400 housing units would fall under the first batch.
The second batch of residents would move into the flats under the first phase of the redeveloped units in Choi Hung Estate, and the third batch would move into the second phase. Ho added that relocation arrangements for the estate’s 17,500 residents will be announced upon completion of the study.
Ho also said residents affected by the redevelopment would be given priority to buy around 1,467 subsidised flats on Wang Chiu Road – near Choi Hung Estate – slated for completion by 2025/26.
The Housing Authority will contact residents and organisations to collect their opinions, she added. “When the rainbow appears once again, we hope it will be even more beautiful and shine even brighter than the old Choi Hung Estate,” she said.
Residents, meanwhile, have told local media outlets that they welcomed the redevelopment, as some flats were leaking water and concrete was breaking off their ceilings. However, some said they did not want to move, while others said Mei Tung Estate was too far away and that they did not have the money to buy a subsidised flat.
Deputy chair of the Legislative Council’s housing panel Scott Leung told local media that the government had to strengthen efforts to help tenants – particularly elderly residents – with relocation. “[The government] has to step up support to assist elderly tenants’ relocation as well as the relocation of shop owners to maintain the estate’s community networks,” he said in Cantonese.
Speaking on an RTHK programme, lawmaker Wilson Or, who also serves as a member of the Housing Authority’s Subsidised Housing Committee, said he hoped the Housing Department would come up with measures tailored to residents’ needs, such as elderly residents who wanted to move closer to their children.
Executive Director of the Federation of Public Housing Estates Anthony Chiu said on the same programme that vacant school buildings in Choi Hung Estate could be redeveloped first in order to minimise the impact on residents, adding that the government could sell more subsidised flats to residents.
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