Hong Kong lawmakers slam government for failing to meet housing targets for years

Hong Kong’s lawmakers across the political spectrum have criticised the government for failing to meet housing targets for years and questioned why it announced a lower target last month in the face of long waiting time for public housing.

Secretary for Transport and Housing Frank Chan Fan conceded the supply of public housing had fallen behind targets over the last five years, but pledged the administration “will not give up and will work harder to make the coming 10 years more fruitful”.

Chan was speaking at a legislative housing panel meeting on Monday, in response to lawmakers’ questions on the latest rolling 10-year housing supply strategy. The plan has drawn criticism from lawmakers.

As part of the strategy, the target for total housing supply in the next decade will be reduced to about 430,000 flats – down from 480,000 and 450,000 set in 2014 and 2018 respectively – mainly due to slowing growth in the number of households and the increasing number of vacant homes in the market.

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam attempts to solve housing crisis in her policy address

Under the latest public-private flat ratio of 70:30, the government will aim at supplying 70 per cent of the 430,000 flats, or 301,000 public homes in the next decade. But the Housing Bureau estimated it would only be able to identify enough land to build 272,000 public flats, which means a shortfall of around 30,000 flats.

“If the shortfall is just so small, there should not be any major housing problem in our city,” Wilson Or Chong-shing of the pro-establishment camp said. “We are disappointed at the government’s estimation.”

Eunice Yung Hoi-yan, another lawmaker of the pro-establishment camp, said there were problems with the formula of calculating housing targets.

“All we see is the rising needs of housing units in society. But the government is telling us the net growth of households have been reduced to 209,800 units in 2019 from 282,000 in 2014. Are you cheating us?”

Chan said in response that “the government is not playing with numbers”. The 10-year target, he said, was based on figures from the Census Department. It is calculated based on three main factors – gross household growth, households displaced by redevelopment and inadequately housed households.

“There may have been growth in households, but its pace has been slower,” Chan said.

Besides questioning the rationale for lowering the housing targets, some lawmakers criticised the government for failing to reach them for years.

In the reports announced since 2014, public housing targets ranged from 28,000 to 31,500 units per year, but only around 17,800 units were supplied every year on average.

How Hong Kong’s public housing system works: costs, waiting times and sales

“People are very angry at the government … you say you have been searching for land, but people are not convinced,” pro-democracy lawmaker Raymond Chan Chi-chuen said, while suggesting the government should make use of military land as well.

Other lawmakers suggested that the government should speed up their actions on releasing more brownfield sites and golf courses or expediting reclamation plans.

Doris Ho, deputy secretary of the Development Bureau, said the government had carried out a survey on 160 hectares of brownfield areas – degraded agricultural land occupied by businesses like car parks or recycling yards – in the New Territories and would announce the first batch of feasible sites very soon.