Hong Kong’s small flats ‘to get even smaller’, hitting quality of life
Meeting government housebuilding targets will require a squeeze on the size of new homes, report says, with serious consequences for city residents
If you find the average flat in Hong Kong too small, get ready to feel even more cramped, as sizes are forecast to shrink further in the coming five years, lowering residents’ quality of life.
That prediction came on Tuesday from the Our Hong Kong Foundation, a think tank founded by former chief executive Tung Chee-hwa, which also pointed out the government had overlooked two plots of land in the New Territories which could yield as many as 30,000 public rental flats to help ease the city’s housing shortage.
The average size of private flats completed between 2018 and 2022 would be 681 sq ft, equivalent to five standard parking spaces – an 18 per cent slide from the average of 833 sq ft in the past decade.
“The situation we are facing today – how we are living in cramped and small spaces – is because of our underestimation of how much land we needed and will need,” Stephen Wong Yuen-shan, the foundation’s deputy executive director, said. “As a result, over the past decade, we have not been creating enough land.”
The projection was based on data from the government as well as private developers for private residential projects set to be completed between 2018 and 2022.
