CY maintains housing plans in line with election vows

Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying emphasised on Thursday that his maiden policy address did not deviate from his election platform and earlier promises, saying that he expected the amount of public housing being built in the next five years to exceed the 75,000-unit vow in the speech.

But as he spoke on a radio phone-in programme in the morning, Leung still faced a barrage of criticism from listeners who complained that he did too little to help those with pressing housing needs, and to tackle problems such as inflation.

During the run-up to last year’s race for the top job, in October 2011, Leung said in a public forum that the government should provide 35,000 public housing rental flats every year in the next few years to shorten the queue.

He later promised, in his platform, to “expedite the construction of the planned 75,000 public rental housing flats in the next five years … and bring forward by one year the completion of about half of the flats scheduled for completion in later years”.

In his policy speech, Leung said the government had “secured land for the development of about 75,000 new public housing flats over the next five years”.

Leung told radio interviewers on Thursday morning that 75,000 public housing units “is something of which we could be certain, and the number that we could tell the public, but those public flats that will be built and added, with our short term efforts, are not in the policy speech. Once we know that figure, we will announce it to the public.”

In response to a caller identified as Mr Wong, who lives with his family of five in a subdivided flat and complained about the lack of a solution to his housing problems, Leung said he “felt very disturbed” to hear about those living in substandard homes, and emphasised that the government is determined to alleviate the housing needs of the lower class.