Hong Kong’s second largest public housing provider announces 10% rent rise amid fiscal woes
Hong Kong Free Press
Hong Kong’s second largest public housing provider has announced a 10 per cent rent rise as it faces a rising repair bill for ageing estates.
The Hong Kong Housing Society (HKHS), an independent and non-profit organisation which operates 20 rental estates citywide, announced on Wednesday it had approved the increase.
“Well-off tenants” – those whose income and assets exceeded certain thresholds – will start paying the new rents in October, while the others will be exempt until January.
The new measures will see tenants in Group A estates, which cater to low-income families, pay an extra HK$230 per month, while those in the three Group B rental estates, for families with higher incomes, will pay HK$640 more. Group B flats make up some 2,112 of the 32,663 flats operated by the Housing Society.
The new rents will remain in effect until September 2026, in accordance with a review mechanism which aims to balance “tenants’ affordability and the operational sustainability of rental estates.”
The move came just weeks after Hong Kong’s Housing Bureau, a government department, submitted a proposal for a 10 per cent rent hike for subsidised housing to the legislature. It would involve rises of between HK$49 and HK$572 every month, with an average increase of HK$230.
Housing chief Winnie Ho said the increases would be affordable for most tenants.
See also: 5,000 Hong Kong public housing units recovered in 2 years amid crackdown on ‘rich tenants’
In a statement, the HKHS said: “In light of the prevailing economic situation, HKHS has decided to provide a special concession by waiving the extra rent payable by the tenants as a result of rent adjustment for the first three months.”
The society will delay the rent increase from October – at which point well-off tenants will start paying the new rents – to January for other residents, costing it around HK$24 million.
Tenants who have “short-term financial difficulties” can seek help from the HKHS Rent Assistance Scheme, under which they can be granted rent reductions of either 50 per cent or 25 per cent.
The society said an increase in expenditure had led to an operational deficit. “It is anticipated that HKHS’s rental estates operation will continue to incur a deficit in the next two years,” it said.
While the Housing Society provides public housing, it operates on a self-financing basis.
HKHS Director of Property Management Sanford Poon told RTHK on Thursday that about 60 percent of tenants would see rent increases of less than HK$230 — less than the average for Group A estates.
Asked whether the society would consider a six-month waiver instead, Poon said he believed three months was appropriate, adding that 90 per cent of tenants eligible for rent assistance only had to pay half the normal rent, with the remaining 10 per cent paying even less.
He said the society’s financial woes were in part due to its aging estates, half of which had been around for more than 50 years and needed substantial repairs.
David Chiu, Executive Director of the Federation of Public Housing Estates, said on the same programme that he understood the need for the rent increase, and that the HKHS would take into account residents’ means.
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