Rise of nano flats in Hong Kong has led to fall in living standards, with government policies to blame, land use group says
- Liber Research Community found that nano flats – those no larger than 260 sq ft – accounted for 13 per cent of all the total private housing supply in 2019
- The group has called on the government to raise minimum size requirements for residential developments
Hong Kong private developers have built more than 8,500 nano flats that were each sold for millions of dollars over the past decade, according to a research group, which called for the government to impose a minimum size requirement on homes to improve living standards.
The supply of such flats – defined by the group Liber Research Community as those not bigger than 260 sq ft – has been on the rise. Production in 2019 made up 13 per cent of the total private housing supply that year.
In a new report, Liber, a civic group that focuses on housing and land issues, argued that government policies were to blame for the increase in nano flats, and it should follow overseas examples such as Singapore and Britain to discourage the construction of shoebox homes.
“The government has been compressing flat size as a solution to [land] shortages regardless of the corresponding worsening living standards,” Liber researcher Neon Yiu Ching-hei said. “This has led to a proliferation of tiny, or nano, flats, branded as ‘affordable’ homes in the market.”
The government’s task force on land supply, which steered a citywide debate on ways to source land in 2018, only focused on the quantitative demand and ignored home size and living quality, Chan Kim-ching, also from Liber, added.