ebulletin

September 4, 2021
301,000 public housing units for the coming ten years

Secretary for Transport & Housing Frank Chan recently said the Housing Authority deals with the redevelopment of aged public rental housing (PRH) estates in a practical and proactive manner.

Having finished the first cycle of the Comprehensive Structural Investigation Programme in 2018, the authority proceeded with the second cycle. So far, it has completed investigations at 11 PRH estates, covering 90 buildings and about 42,000 units, and allocated additional resources to expedite the work. The entire second cycle is expected to be completed in phases before 2032.

Structural conditions of buildings, cost-effectiveness of repair works, availability of suitable rehousing resources in the vicinity of the estates to be redeveloped and build-back potential upon redevelopment are the four basic principles that the authority considers when deciding whether to redevelop a PRH estate, Mr Chan told lawmakers. In addition to redevelopment, the authority has been examining the feasibility of using vacant land within or next to existing PRH estates for building extra public housing, he added. If these additional buildings are suitable to be used as rehousing resources for redeveloping aged PRH estates, the authority will give consideration in conjunction with the four basic principles.

Meanwhile, the Government has identified 330 hectares of land for building 316,000 public housing units, sufficient to meet the target of supplying about 301,000 public housing units for the 10-year period from 2021-22 to 2030-31. Among the 330 hectares, about 35% comes from new development areas and large-scale development projects, about 40% from rezoning, and the rest from other developments including brownfield. Acknowledging that two-thirds of the public housing supply will be available in the latter half of the 10-year period, and that some of them are facing various kinds of challenges and uncertainties, Mr Chan stressed that the Government will not be complacent.

The authority has completed 12 redevelopment projects involving seven PRH estates with a total of about 28,400 flats in the past decade and is in the process of redeveloping Pak Tin Estate (older portion), Mei Tung Estate (older portion) and Wah Fu Estate involving 13,300 units.

Tung Chung New Town Extension project