Hong Kong steps up efforts to ease public housing deficit as Wheelock’s project gains approval, New World prepares submission

Name: Tiny 290sq ft temporary housing a welcome upgrade for some low-income Hong Kong families
Uploaded: 2021-03-29T00:30:11.000Z
Duration: 4 min 11 s
Description: Tiny 290sq ft temporary housing a welcome upgrade for some low-income Hong Kong families

Wheelock Properties to build more than 2,000 temporary housing for low-income groups as waiting time for public rental housing stretches to 5.5 years

The Town Planning Board had earlier approved a total of 3,800 units on land leased from Sun Hung Kai Properties and Henderson Land

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An existing development at Wong Yue Tan in New Territories. Photo: Handout

Sandy Li

Published: 8:30am, 29 Mar 2021Updated: 8:40am, 29 Mar 2021

Hong Kong is stepping up its efforts to provide more homes for the city’s poorest after approving another batch of so-called transitional housing proposals even as officials seek to revive the pandemic-ravaged economy.

The Town Planning Board on Friday signed off on a plan by Wheelock Properties to build 1,236 units to help bridge a demand and supply imbalance in public housing. The board had earlier approved 3,800 units to be built on sites leased from two other private developers last year.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor in January last year pledged to supply 15,000 units of transitional homes over a three-year period. The city’s administrators and private developers came under criticism by mainland Chinese media, who blamed unaffordable housing for stoking social unrest until the national security law came into effect late June.

Almost 1,200 transitional homes have been completed through March this year, according to the Transport and Housing Bureau. A task force under the bureau has separately identified land for building 14,000 units by 2023, according to a submission to the Legislative Council earlier this month.

Transitional homes are built for low-income groups who have not been able to move into public housing. The average waiting time for such a facility in Hong Kong is 5½ years, with more than 155,000 applicants on the waiting list.

They are built on government land or on idle land banks leased by charity organisations for a token sum from some of the city’s richest private developers including Wheelock Properties, Henderson Land, Sun Hung Kai Properties and New World Development.

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Tiny 290sq ft temporary housing a welcome upgrade for some low-income Hong Kong families