The government will not sell any vacant Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) flats to property developers except 4,000 units jointly developed with a private firm, the housing chief said yesterday.
Michael Suen Ming-yeung, the Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands, made the pledge ahead of a Housing Authority brainstorming session tomorrow, where members will discuss plans to dispose of 24,000 surplus HOS flats.
He said the government aimed to dispose of them within a year.
Mr Suen added that the flats - accumulated because the government decided in November to drop the scheme - could be turned into university halls and rented to students, or used to resettle people affected by slum clearance projects.
The decision to shelve the HOS indefinitely was made in an attempt to stabilise the supply of flats and revive property prices.
Mr Suen said even if the government could not dispose of all the flats in a year, the rest would not be sold to developers and the government would dispose of them by other means.
He said about 4,000 flats in two projects in Hunghom and Ngau Chi Wan, which were jointly developed with New World Development, would be considered for sale to developers. Outstanding land premiums would be retrieved if the developers resold the flats.
