Hongkongers believe housing is the most pressing matter Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen must deal with in his policy address today, a university poll has found.
The finding coincides with a call by two former planning chiefs for a long-term housing policy backed up by a demand forecast, a system that was shelved during the economic downturn in 2003.
In a random telephone survey conducted by the University of Hong Kong's public opinion programme since September, 69 per cent of about 1,000 respondents said housing was a 'very important' issue for Tsang to address, followed by health care policy (60 per cent).
Tsang, in a rare admission, said in a radio programme on Saturday there had been shortcomings in government policies over the past few years that had contributed to soaring property prices and made homes unaffordable. He said the government and business had 'overreacted' to the financial crisis in 1998 by calling a halt to all plans for assisted home purchases. Yesterday, former chief secretary Henry Tang Ying-yen admitted he shared responsibility for this, having been a senior public servant for the past nine years.
In his policy address, Tsang is expected to announce the revival of the Home Ownership Scheme (HOS), shelved in 2002, with the first batch of about 5,000 subsidised flats ready for sale in 2016.
But Peter Pun Kwok-shing, who retired as director of planning in 1999, said a housing demand forecast also needed to be resurrected. Pun recalled that the colonial government and former chief executive Tung Chee-hwa's administration both had a steering committee on land supply to look for sites for housing.