With approximately 107,400 households living in subdivided units and 230,300 public rental housing (PRH) applicants in the city, we must admit that one of the most pressing issues facing Hong Kong housing is the phenomenon of subdivided units. The Housing Bureau, established last year, appears to be very busy with bringing Light Public Housing (LPH) into being to “fill the short-term gap of public housing supply in a timely manner”.
The government is bending over backwards to build LPH, yet it can hardly solve the problem of inadequate housing. Thirty thousand LPH units will not be fully ready until 2028, whereas there are still over 200,000 public housing applicants remaining after providing LPH units for 30,000 applicants. What will the special administrative region government’s next move be following completion of the LPH? The possibility of having a policy road map seems remote, not to mention that of having a plan for the overall course of the city’s housing policy.
Another issue is that the Housing Bureau should be responsible for housing policies. The responsibility of constructing LPH should rest with the Housing Authority, but it has become the responsibility of the Architectural Services Department (ArchSD). Why is ArchSD, which is subordinate to the Development Bureau, responsible? Why didn’t the Housing Bureau give commands to the Housing Authority to execute? The Housing Bureau employs 9,838 civil servants, so why didn’t the Housing Authority deploy its own resources and established structures more freely to take charge of the LPH program instead of establishing a “dedicated team” to assign the job to the ArchSD?
This reflects the fact that the government’s division of labor is not effective since it has failed to fully utilize the administrative resources at hand. Instead of building housing units, the Housing Bureau’s job is to set up housing policies. The responsibility for building housing units thus rests with the Housing Authority. With the present scale and existing resources, the Housing Authority is more than suitable. Now, the first batch of 2,100 LPH units will not be ready until 2025. Besides, given the government’s track record with construction projects, there will likely be deviations or delays. If the completion of LPH is delayed until 2027 or later, the term of the current administration will be over before the applicants can move in. The problem of poor-quality subdivided units needs to be solved at once. The longer the applicants have to wait, the more severe the problem will be.
If Hong Kong wishes to develop a wide variety of industries, the government must first bring forward a substantial housing policy. ... In the long term, it is only right to have a structured research system regarding housing policy and a durable development plan for the city’s future
How should the Housing Bureau formulate housing policies in the long term? The Housing Bureau should manage its own big data, which can be used to analyze and plan the division of labor, and map Hong Kong’s future development based on different housing statistics. Private developers and civil organizations should also be engaged to work with the Housing Society, the Housing Authority, and the Urban Renewal Authority to provide different types and sizes of housing supply. There should be comprehensive planning in place; for example, the government should take into consideration how many units can be provided by the Housing Authority, and how many units will be provided by the Housing Society. Therefore, in addition to a blueprint for housing policy in the upcoming policy address, there should be blue books and white papers to delineate the structure and the allocation of work for the city’s future housing development.
Provided that most of the subdivided units can be found in the old districts of Kowloon, the Urban Renewal Authority must not shun its responsibility. It could have acted on Hong Kong’s subdivided flat trend more directly. Laws and regulations, namely, the Landlord and Tenant (Consolidation) Ordinance, also known as the Tenancy Control of Subdivided Units, should be constantly reviewed and kept up to date. Despite it coming into force in 2022, the problem still affects the public, as many households are living in subdivided units. The government needs to think flexibly. For instance, considering building houses takes time, could the government first rent or make purchases? How about allocating HK$30 billion ($3.84 billion) to purchase existing units from the housing market? Or could the government relax some regulations and give the public leeway to repurpose individual units in industrial buildings for temporary accommodation? These are some suggestions that could instantly help relieve the problem of poor living conditions in subdivided flats.
Has the Housing Bureau considered about the distribution of subdivided units and identified where most of the units are located? What measures should be taken for these areas? Is there a way to provide relief without pulling out all the stops? Thirty thousand new LPH flats brought by the first phase of the scheme is just a drop in the ocean. It is not even remotely close to tackling the housing crisis. These government-built units won’t be ready until 2028. Even if the residents move into the new LPH units, where will they go after five years? Without an overarching development plan, tackling the housing problem, brick by brick, will not alter the status quo.
The 2023 Policy Address should illustrate a comprehensive housing strategy or offer a blue paper. For the coming year, more emphasis should be put on formulating housing policies. A city’s social stability is found upon providing an adequate housing supply, which is beyond a simple economic issue. Housing needs to be considered and reviewed from the perspectives of planning, architecture, and social development. The government is too used to narrowing its focus on the economic aspects and dealing with the housing crisis from the viewpoint of real estate, so the social effects it induced in the long run have long been neglected.
If Hong Kong wishes to develop a wide variety of industries, the government must first bring forward a substantial housing policy. For example, a surplus in Japan’s housing supply has helped its development of industries. Meanwhile, neither is the development of various sectors in Germany dominated by real estate. Singapore, with its solid foundation of housing policy, has put the country on a strong footing. That has facilitated its development of technology and other industries. If Hong Kong makes no move to alter the status quo to overcome the dominance of the real-estate/property market, it will inevitably hamper the development of other sectors. Therefore, the Housing Bureau should own its cultural vision to establish phased strategies for the short, medium, and long term in a development blueprint. In the long term, it is only right to have a structured research system regarding housing policy and a durable development plan for the city’s future.
The author is a member of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies and artistic director of the experimental theater company Zuni Icosahedron.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
