Letters | Hong Kong housing paradox: why temporary flats cost more to build

Readers discuss the economics of modular construction, the Covid-19 testing requirement for schoolchildren, and how to promote recycling

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Nam Cheong 220, in Sham Shui Po, is a transitional housing project which has adopted Modular Integrated Construction. Photo: Yik Yeung-man

Published: 11:30am, 30 Dec 2022

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At a recent legislative council meeting, the housing chief revealed that some temporary public flats under a new scheme for creating 30,000 homes could cost more to build than permanent units. This statement would have come as a surprise to most ordinary people.

As “temporary” implies, these flats are simplified versions of permanent units and will not last many years. It’s common sense that these should be cheaper. How are we to understand the paradox then?

The root of the problem is that in recent years, government departments have adopted Modular Integrated Construction, or MiC. Apparently, this method has hi-tech appeal and is popular with engineers in Hong Kong who are obsessed with implementing innovative ideas. Moreover, this method allows prefabricated building blocks to be created off site by cheaper mainland workers, thus minimising the number of more expensive workers on site.

However, people in general do not appreciate the full implications of such a method. While MiC lays down the principles of making prefabricated building blocks off site and erecting them on site, it does not provide detailed guidelines on design calculation and on-site construction.

At this point, any structural engineer would understand that the total construction cost for a building will increase with its height as the unit cost of infrastructure; in particular, wind effects will increase with building height. The taller a building is, the more the advantage of MiC diminishes, given the higher costs involved of transporting the prefabricated building blocks and raising them on site, and so on.