Policy Address
Private Housing Supply
84. On private housing, including railway property developments, we will strive to secure approximately 170 hectares of land in the coming ten years, and make available to the market sites for the production of about 100 000 units through land sales or putting up railway property developments for tender. This figure has not taken into account development projects undertaken by the Urban Renewal Authority (URA) and other private land development projects. With the Government’s determination to further streamline the land development process, we are confident that there will be a steady supply of land for private housing development.
Redevelopment of Public Rental Housing Estates
85. In addition to newly-built units, we rely on the existing yearly recovery of about 8 000 PRH units for allocation to applicants on the waiting list. Taking into account the need for equitable distribution of PRH resources, we consider it imprudent to re-launch the Tenants Purchase Scheme and allow rental units to become inheritable or saleable assets. It is also difficult to redevelop a large number of aged public housing estates as the existing tenants have to be rehoused to units that could otherwise be allocated to applicants on the waiting list. I sincerely hope that Council Members who have advocated these two housing initiatives over the years will understand the situation.
86. The HKHA has been reviewing and considering whether individual aged public housing estates should be redeveloped in accordance with the established policies and actual circumstances. Given the availability of suitable rehousing resources for Sai Wan Estate and Ma Tau Wai Estate and their build-back potential of providing more housing units upon redevelopment, I will invite the HKHA to conduct a study on the redevelopment of these two about 60 year-old estates under suitable conditions, and with the support of the DEVB, to seek to include the adjacent areas into the redevelopment sites so that these two prime urban sites could provide more public housing units to meet public aspirations.
