Hong Kong may adjust public housing ratio goal downwards once supply targets met, says development chief
Hong Kong Free Press
A policy goal to increase the ratio of public housing in Hong Kong could be adjusted downwards once the average waiting time for a public rental flat has fallen, the city’s development minister has said.
Secretary for Development Bernadette Linn told TVB on Sunday that the authorities decided to aim for a 70:30 split between public and private housing at a time when the focus was on boosting public housing supply.
According to the Housing Authority, 30.7 per cent of Hong Kong’s housing in 2022 was public rental accommodation.
Former leader Carrie Lam’s administration in 2018 set a 10-year target to bring the proportion of public housing up to 70 per cent of Hong Kong’s housing stock, with the remaining 30 per cent for private housing. It became a holdover policy goal for Chief Executive John Lee, who took over in July 2022.
The government was looking into setting different ratios depending on the district, Linn said, adding that it was considering adopting a 50:50 split in areas such as the San Tin Technopole, a proposed tech hub in the city’s northern New Territories.
It would be “inappropriate” to adopt the 70:30 ratio in Tsim Bei Tsui, Lau Fau Shan and Pak Nai – areas in the Northern Metropolis that the government expected to be home to a high concentration of tech talent in the future, she said.
Linn also claimed the public housing supply in the coming 10 years would meet, or even exceed the target, allowing the government to adjust the ratio.
“When the waiting time has shortened in a few years, there will certainly be room to adjust the 70:30 ratio,” Linn said.
The waiting time for a government-subsidised rental flat was 5.8 years on average as of this March, up from the previous quarter’s 5.7 years.
Chief Executive Lee said last October that the government had identified sufficient land to develop about 410,000 public housing units – about 100,000 units above the supply target.
Housing supply
Scott Leung, deputy chair of the Legislative Council’s housing panel, said on Facebook on Monday that now was not the time to adjust the ratio. He suggested that the authorities set a target for the waiting period, for instance at 3.5 years, at which point the ratio could be adjusted.
But lawmaker Edward Lau, who chairs the legislature’s subcommittee on the Northern Metropolis, welcomed Linn’s suggestion, echoing comments that the ratio should be adjusted based on the “actual situation” and surrounding developments.
“In the future, the ratio of public to private housing can be adjusted, for example, to 6:4 or 5:5,” he said in a Facebook post on Monday.
Earlier this month, Hong Kong’s Housing Bureau proposed a 10 per cent rent hike that would take effect next year. Secretary for Housing Winnie Ho said rent assistance measures meant most residents would be able to afford the new prices.
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