Hong Kong Housing Society chief welcomes ‘sandwich class’ plan
Converting some of the newly built residential blocks planned as public rental housing into subsidised sale flats for the so-called “sandwich class” could benefit two types of families, Housing Society chairman Marco Wu Moon-hoi said on Thursday.
Wu, who is also a member of the Long Term Housing Strategy Steering Committee, was speaking two days after the release of the Long Term Housing Strategy report, in which the government pledged to consider ways to “expand the forms of subsidised home ownership”.
The South China Morning Post reported three weeks ago that the government was considering introducing a new layer of housing for the “sandwich class” – citizens whose income level exceeded the public rental housing threshold but could not afford to buy Home Ownership Scheme flats.
Committee member Lau Ping-cheung suggested that this could be done by selling newly built blocks originally intended for public rental to families currently living in public rental estates.
While housing minister Anthony Cheung Bing-leung declined to confirm this idea when he announced the report on Tuesday, Wu welcomed the proposal when asked on a commercial radio programme on Thursday morning.
“This can benefit two families,” he said, referring to the public rental housing tenants who would now be able to afford to own their own flats at discount prices, and those waiting for public rental housing who would be allocated the old flats after the former moved out.
He believed those new flats would attract public rental housing tenants to buy. “New public rental housing blocks have higher standards in terms of both planning and design. The quality has been improving,” he said.
