Hong Kong Chief Government John Lee Ka-chiu delivers his annual coverage handle on the Legislative Council on Oct. 16, 2024, in Hong Kong.
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Hong Kong chief govt John Lee introduced strikes aimed toward addressing the town’s housing affordability disaster, calling it “a problem of nice public concern” in an annual coverage handle on Wednesday.
One keynote coverage introduced in his speech will look to supply a neater path to sponsored housing for residents beneath the age of 40 amid mounting considerations about their means to get a foothold within the metropolis’s crowded housing market.
Beneath the plan, the Hong Kong Housing Authority will allocate an additional poll quantity to candidates aged under 40 — a transfer that may improve their probabilities of being chosen for the town’s sponsored House Possession Scheme flats.
The federal government may also improve its quota for the “White Kind Secondary Market Scheme”— beneath which secondhand sponsored flats will be purchased and offered with out a land premium — by 1,500, all of that are reserved for candidates beneath 40. Solely 4,500 households have been eligible for residences beneath the scheme in 2023.
The transfer comes amid experiences and fears that younger Hong Kongers within the metropolis could decline promotions and pay raises for the aim of remaining eligible for public housing moderately than enter the non-public market.
To additional handle youth housing affordability, the federal government will proceed its Youth Hostel Scheme, which subsidizes non-governmental organizations’ renting of inns and guesthouses to be used as youth hostels.
The 2024 Demographia Worldwide Housing Affordability report ranked the town because the least reasonably priced place to discover a house for over a decade. The town’s over 100,000 “shoe-box sized” subdivided flats, which have been linked to issues with well being and security, are sometimes used to drive house this truth.
Lee stated on Wednesday that the town would launch a brand new system for renting subdivided flats, with “substandard” items to be transformed into “Primary Housing Models” that meet new necessities resembling home windows, bathrooms and a measurement bigger than 86 sq. ft.
He additionally stated the federal government expects to finish about 9,500 new public housing items subsequent yr, shifting towards a aim of finishing about 30,000 items by 2027-2028.
The present wait time for a public housing unit in Hong Kong is 5.5 years. In line with Lee, the wait time could possibly be shortened to 4.5 years in 2026-2027.
The coverage handle on Wednesday was Lee’s third in his five-year time period, and it had extra concentrate on enhancing residents’ livelihoods and strengthening the town’s economic system than earlier than.
Prior addresses had been extra targeted on problems with nationwide safety and post-pandemic restoration measures, with Lee taking on the town after a interval of civil unrest that led into the Covid-19 pandemic.
