2024-05-03 28Hse Editor
"Long Strategy" announced the total demand of 421,000 public and private units to maintain seven or three open
Solving the housing problem is the top priority of the current SAR government. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government announced yesterday the "Long Term Housing Strategy Annual Progress Report 2022". According to the established projection method of the Long Term Housing Strategy and adjustments made to account for the vacancy of private residential units, the next 10-year period (ie 2023/24 to 2032/33) with a total housing demand of 421,000 units, the government has therefore set the supply target at 430,000 units, in line with last year. The government has also decided to maintain the ratio of public and private housing at 70:30, so the public and private housing supply targets are 301,000 units and 129,000 units respectively. In the policy address released earlier, it has been announced that the government has found enough land to provide about 360,000 public housing units in the next 10 years, exceeding the supply target by nearly 20%, and has "met the target" for three consecutive years. ◆reporter Fei Xiaoye
A spokesman for the Housing Bureau of the SAR Government said yesterday that since 2018, the government has set a target ratio of 70:30 for new supply of public and private housing. After balancing various considerations, including the need for a substantial increase in public housing supply to meet demand and the community's demand for private housing, the ratio of public and private housing remains unchanged for the next 10-year period. Taking into account the continued strong demand for various types of public housing, the Government will maintain the supply ratio of public housing/green subsidised housing and other subsidised sale housing for the next 10-year period at 70:30. According to this ratio, out of the 301,000 public housing supply target, the number of public housing/green subsidized housing units is 210,000 units, and the other subsidized sale housing units are 91,000 units.
Find enough land to build 360,000 public housing units
In estimating the total housing demand, the Long Strategy Annual Progress Report calculates a net increase of 189,400 units in the number of households, 72,400 units for households affected by redevelopment, 127,500 units for households with poor living conditions, plus other factors 24,200 units (including 540 units per year for non-local students who may live in housing units in Hong Kong, 1,180 units per year for non-local buyers who do not sell or rent units, etc.), resulting in 413,500 units (up and down 435,000 and 392,000 respectively). In addition, since there are a certain number of vacant units in the private housing market at any time, 7,500 vacancy-adjusted units should be added to the projections for the next 10 years, resulting in a total housing supply target of 421,000 units for the next 10 years.
According to the announcement in the policy address, enough land has been found to provide about 360,000 public housing units in the next 10 years. The Long Strategy Annual Progress Report further disclosed that in terms of units, the supply mainly comes from new development areas and large-scale development projects (about 38%), land rezoning (about 37%), and other projects (about 25%) including Development of brownfield sites, redevelopment of Hong Kong Housing Authority factory buildings and development of smallPart of the upper cover of the site of the Ho Wan Depot, etc. The Government will make good use of the precious land resources to increase the production of public housing by optimizing the development potential.
However, the supply of 360,000 units will continue to be "head light and tail heavy", with about a third expected to be completed in the first five-year period (ie 2023/24 to 2027/28). As most of the projects in the first 5-year period are under construction or at a later stage of "land construction", the completion timetable of the relevant projects is relatively firm. As for the projects planned to be completed in the second 5-year period, most of the sites are at the construction or research stage. Whether they can be used for the construction of public housing depends on whether the rezoning, district consultation, infrastructure construction, land resumption, demolition and reconstruction can be completed on schedule. The development time of the required procedures such as the placement of the affected facilities is relatively variable.
Continue to expand land to supply 129,000 private houses
On the supply of private residential units, the Government will continue to develop enough land to meet the private housing supply target of 129,000 units in the next 10-year period. In the next five years, the government will prepare land for the market to build no less than 72,000 units through land sales and railway property development. Together with the Urban Renewal Authority projects and other private land development projects, it will be sufficient to meet the requirements of the Private housing supply targets under the Long Term Policy. In terms of short-term supply, according to the latest projections at the end of September this year, the supply in the first-hand private residential property market is expected to be around 95,000 units in the next three to four years.
The "Long Term Housing Strategy Annual Progress Report 2022" has been uploaded to the Housing Bureau's website at www.hb.gov.hk/en/policy/housing/policy/lths/index.html.
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