Opinion | Hong Kong’s housing crisis is driven by lack of political will, not a land shortage

Hong Kong is well known for its world-leading home prices and land shortage. Yet, augmenting land supply in a big enough way to give people hope about the availability of decent, affordable homes has been a difficult task which has eluded Hong Kong’s most recent chief executives Leung Chun-ying and Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor.

Flash back to 2002, when chief executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen was preoccupied with precisely the opposite. To shore up the ailing property sector, Tsang suspended land sales by auction. The hiatus in land production resulted in a severe shortage when the economy bounced back.

When Leung took over in 2012, land and housing were in such short supply that he faced a red-hot property market. Leung introduced a series of additional stamp duties on property transactions to cool the market.

In the absence of large-scale land supply, the waiting time for public rental housing for ordinary families has lengthened to 5.8 years, despite the Housing Authority’s pledge of three years. Altogether, about a quarter of a million people are on the waiting list.

Lam started her tenure by setting up a task force on land supply, even though she was well versed with the available options as a former secretary for development. She cannot be faulted for hoping to secure public support for a preferred option after a community-wide consultation.

Despite her best efforts, her mega-project Lantau Tomorrow Vision – which promises to deliver at least 1,000 hectares of reclaimed land east of Lantau Island – could not escape a chorus of opposing voices from environmentalists, legislators and ordinary citizens. Opponents were concerned about splashing out at least HK$624 billion (US$80.2 billion) on a long-term infrastructure project.