WAITING TIME FOR PUBLIC FLATS RISES

Average delay for housing estate scheme reaches 6.1 years, more than double the government target

The average waiting time for a public housing flat has increased to 6.1 years, the longest since 1998, according to official figures released yesterday.

The wait is more than double the government’s target of three years and has grown longer in recent years, hitting 5.1 years in 2018 and hovering around 5.4 to 5.5 years until June 2020. It then continued to gradually increase, reaching a record of six years in December last year.

The data from the Housing Authority showed there were 147,500 general applications for public rental flats as of the end of March, with the average waiting time reaching a 24-year high of 6.1 years.

The average wait for a single elderly person was 4.1 years during the same period, accounting for an increase of 1.2 months over the last quarter.

The Housing Department attributed the rise to the phased intake of a large number of applicants at several big public housing projects, such as Queen’s Hill Estate in Fanling and Hoi Tat Estate and Pak Tin Estate in Sham Shui Po, in the first quarter of this year. It said the latest figure reflected the residents’ waiting period.

Cleresa Wong Pie-yue, chairwoman of the Housing Authority’s subsidised housing committee, said the waiting time got slightly extended because more than 3,000 flats were once lent to the government as isolation facilities. The intake is expected to start in phases between later this month and the middle of next month.

Wong admitted that the public housing supply could not meet the city’s demand and it would take time to significantly reduce the waiting period.

The government said earlier it had identified 350 hectares of land for building 330,000 flats to fulfil the demand for housing over the next 10 years, but most of them could only be built roughly between 2027 and 2032.

Chief executive-elect John Lee Ka-chiu has proposed an advance allocation scheme under which flats at selected public housing estates could be offered to families on the waiting list before infrastructure and transport facilities are completed.

Lee said he hoped to make the projects available a year earlier than expected.

Wong said she believed the authority would cooperate with the new government as much as possible on the scheme. The authority would also work with other service providers “who have a stake [in the project]”, she added, citing transport arrangements for residents in rural areas as an example.

Leung Man-kwong, deputy chairman of the Legislative Council’s housing panel, said the wait for some residents could have been even longer than 6.1 years, since the figure was only an average of the duration.

“The situation will get worse because more large-scale public housing estates will be completed in the future,” Leung said. “Many applicants have waited for over six years.”

Leung said he hoped Lee’s advance allocation scheme would ease the wait for families in need, adding that the government should speed up the allocation process by reducing the amenities shared among different blocks in large-scale public estates.

A concern group, Kwai Chung Subdivided Flats Residents’ Alliance, said it was not surprised by the increased waiting time.

However, it expressed reservations about the scheme since some residents had already been allocated public housing flats without infrastructure under current practices.

“[A lack of infrastructure] is another difficult situation for the residents,” said Kenny Ng Kwanlim, a member of the alliance.

“Even with the current policy, the waiting time is 6.1 years. If it is to be shortened, when will the infrastructure be built?”

Ng said he also feared the scheme had limited effect on reducing the wait.

The Democratic Party said the increased waiting period showed the existing administration had failed to resolve housing issues for low-income families, adding that this had caused disappointment among residents.

“The completion of new public housing estates in the next few years will slow down and the wait will be even longer. We urge the government to introduce more measures in helping low-income families, such as increasing the supply of transitional housing,” said Mok Kin-shing, the party’s housing policy spokesman.