Democrats urge government to build cheap flats
The government should remove 16 sites from its land sales list and use them to build subsidised flats, the Democratic Party will propose when it meets the financial secretary today.
The party's spokesman on housing, lawmaker Lee Wing-tat, said that reviving the Home Ownership Scheme could help save Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah, who is facing a political backlash after his U-turn on the controversial government budget.
'The government is facing ever more pressure on relaunching the scheme. I don't think all developers are against the idea,' he said. He added that the party would try to convince other parties from the pan-democratic camp to join the call.
The idea was raised a day after Tsang said the government would study a range of ways to improve people's quality of life, including the possible revival of the Home Ownership Scheme, suspended in 2003 amid the economic downturn.
The Democratic Party wants the former Ho Man Tin Estate site in Hung Hom, seven sites in Tseung Kwan O and eight sites in Sha Tin, all included in the list of sites for sale by application to developers, to be used instead to revive the scheme.
The 16 sites, totalling 19 hectares, could deliver 12,600 flats for 44,000 people, Lee estimated, assuming all the sites were medium to high density, offering flats of 538 sq ft.
He also suggested that the subsided My Home Purchase Plan, launched by the Housing Society last year to help the sandwich class - those too wealthy for public housing but unable to afford a home in the private sector - should make way for a renewed Home Ownership Scheme. Three sites in Tsing Yi, Sha Tin and Tai Po have been reserved for My Home to provide 3,000 flats, starting from 2014.
'These sites are already equipped with basic utilities, and site formation has been completed. Some in the land sale list had been rolled over for a few years. The two batches of land can readily yield 15,000 flats in the coming three years,' Lee said.
A spokesman for the Transport and Housing Bureau declined to comment on the possible revival of the Home Ownership Scheme. He said the bureau was working with the Housing Society to take forward the My Home Purchase Plan as announced by Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen in his policy address last year.
He said steps were being taken to take the initiative forward. Meanwhile, the remaining unsold Home Ownership Scheme flats at Tin Chung Court in Tin Shui Wai should be sold later this year, he added.
