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Some living in New Territories will be allowed to apply for urban housing

More than 40,000 public estate households will have the chance to move to a larger flat under a new Housing Department proposal to improve tenants' living space.

Some of those now living in the New Territories will also be allowed to apply for public housing flats in urban areas.

Under the proposal, households living at a density of 7 square metres (75.34 sq ft) of internal space per person or less can apply for a bigger flat under the Territory-Wide Overcrowding Relief exercise.

The density to qualify for the scheme is now 5.5 square metres per person.

Since 2001, more than 6,000 families have moved to bigger flats  in 10 rounds of the exercise.

The department said the policy had come under fire in recent years from tenants and concern groups as the current average area of new public housing is 11.4 square metres per person.

The new proposal was discussed at a meeting of the Housing Authority's Subsidised Housing Committee yesterday.

The department says 40,174 households will qualify.

Tam Wing-pong, deputy director of housing (strategy), said the new scheme should not be interpreted as a sign of the authorities redefining the criteria for overcrowded households.

The department is also proposing to allow those households that have been residing  in public housing in the New Territories for over 10 years to apply for a transfer to the urban areas.

The authority says the move will be able to redress the imbalance in the supply of vacant public housing flats across Hong Kong.

Of the 8,596 flats currently available for allocation, fewer than 2,000 are in the New Territories, where the problem of overcrowding is most severe.

The imbalance is made worse by the location of new flats - in the coming five years over 78 per cent will be in urban and suburban areas.

The department plans to present the scheme to the committee for formal discussion  later this month, and hopes to implement it at the beginning of next month.

Committee member Wong Kwun said he supported the changes, saying it meant tenants would have better living conditions and also allow more small flats to be made available for allocation as the demand for such type of flats has been enormous.

The department also said it has won the support of most committee members for  the introduction of a new adjustment mechanism for the asset limit of public housing applicants.

Under its proposal, the limit will be adjusted annually according to the retail price index instead of the private housing rent data.

The department said it studied four different options but concluded that its proposed one would attract the least public backslash.



Larger flats possible for over 40,000 households