Policy Address
V. Increasing Housing and Land Supply
Housing Supply
Guiding Principle
81. Providing decent accommodation for all is the primary goal of my housing policy. Noting the public concern on the matter, I reviewed the progress and set out my vision on the issue of housing and land during the Chief Executive’s Question and Answer Session on 15 July this year. In my concluding remarks, I said that the solution to address the housing problem of people in Hong Kong more thoroughly rested not on “quick fixes” to deal with current situations, but rather on the determination to sustain land supply, as well as the courage to remain steadfast with the policies implemented in face of short-term economic changes or fluctuations in property prices.
Public Housing Supply
82. The current-term Government has demonstrated just that determination and courage. We revised the public/private housing split from 60:40 to 70:30 in 2018 to further step up our policy efforts in producing more public housing units, and our ongoing efforts in identifying land have also begun to bear fruit. We have identified about 350 hectares of land to produce some 330 000 public housing units for the coming 10-year period (i.e. from 2022-23 to 2031-32), slightly higher than the figure announced last year, and can meet the estimated public housing demand of around 301 000 units in the coming 10-year period. The THB will provide more details in the Long Term Housing Strategy Annual Progress Report 2021 to be published at the end of this year.
83. Although the overly long waiting time for PRH allocation is worrying, public housing production in the five-year tenure of the current-term Government will in fact reach 96 500 units, an increase of 30 000 units compared to the previous five-year period. The production of over 300 000 units in the ten years ahead will be back-loaded, with only one-third to be delivered within the first five years. I have urged the Secretary for Transport and Housing to make every endeavour to compress the construction workflow of the Hong Kong Housing Authority (HKHA) to deliver more units as early as possible. In this connection, the HKHA and the Hong Kong Housing Society (HKHS) will adopt the MiC and other innovative construction technology more widely. The HKHA will also adopt a new procurement model to suitable projects to allow contractors to undertake design and construction in a bundle, thereby releasing resources for the Housing Department to carry out preliminary design, as well as leveraging the contractors’ expertise to further enhance the entire construction workflow. To make good on my promise last year to provide personal steer on housing and land related work, I have requested the DEVB and the THB to submit quarterly reports on all public housing sites for the next five-year period, i.e. from 2027-28 to 2031-32. I will give instructions personally if the time to deliver the sites or the progress of construction is less than satisfactory.
