Opinion | Is a 700 sq ft home really too much to ask for Hong Kong families?

Name: Hong Kong has until 2049 to fix its housing crisis, but is it possible?
Uploaded: 2021-10-31T06:15:12.000Z
Duration: 10 min 8 s
Description: Hong Kong has until 2049 to fix its housing crisis, but is it possible?

We know the private sector is not going to build enough decent-sized flats at affordable prices

So the government needs to get past its fear of antagonising vested interests and start building the units itself, whether for rental or sale

Reading Time:4 minutes

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A nano-flat exhibit organised by the Hong Kong Platform Concerning Subdivided Flats attracts attention in a pedestrian zone in Causeway Bay on January 20, 2019. Photo: Nora Tam

Mike Rowse

Published: 2:15pm, 31 Oct 2021

“The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday – but never jam today.” The White Queen’s explanation to Alice – in the 1871 Lewis Carroll novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There – of why gratification was always deferred, could well apply to Hong Kong’s housing situation.

International surveys regularly show we have the most expensive real estate in the world, essentially because we have not built enough flats of the right standard. Relief is always just around the corner. In 1998, it was the “85,000 units per year” programme; in 2018, it was the Lantau Tomorrow Vision; this year, it is the Northern Metropolis.

Every few years we seem to have a new plan to boost the number of residential units to eliminate the shortfall, but the results are always 20 years into the future.

As with quantity, so also with quality: how big should the units be to provide a decent standard of housing? If that issue seems to have attracted much less interest in the past, the balance may be shifting.

Development Secretary Michael Wong Wai-lun recently said the government was considering introducing a minimum size requirement for newly built private flats, noting suggestions of 210 sq ft.

10:08

Hong Kong has until 2049 to fix its housing crisis, but is it possible?

It is frankly outrageous that such a minimum needs to be written into law, but better late than never. That micro flats smaller than this – barely big enough to park a car – are being built by developers and put on the market as places to live is an indictment of our society.

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