Hong Kong Chief Govt John Lee Ka-chiu delivers his annual coverage tackle on the Legislative Council on Oct. 16, 2024, in Hong Kong.
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Hong Kong chief government John Lee introduced strikes geared toward addressing the town’s housing affordability disaster, calling it “a difficulty of nice public concern” in an annual coverage tackle on Wednesday.Â
One keynote coverage introduced in his speech will look to supply a neater path to backed housing for residents below the age of 40 amid mounting issues about their capacity to get a foothold within the metropolis’s crowded housing market.
Below 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 backed Residence Possession Scheme flats.
The federal government will even improve its quota for the “White Kind Secondary Market Scheme“— below which secondhand backed flats may be purchased and bought with out a land premium — by 1,500, all of that are reserved for candidates below 40. Solely 4,500 households have been eligible for studios below the scheme in 2023.
The transfer comes amid experiences and fears that younger Hong Kongers within the metropolis might decline promotions and pay raises for the aim of remaining eligible for public housing reasonably than enter the personal market.
To additional tackle 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. 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 reality.Â
Lee mentioned on Wednesday that the town would launch a brand new system for renting subdivided flats, with “substandard” items to be transformed into “Primary Housing Items” that meet new necessities equivalent to home windows, bogs and a measurement bigger than 86 sq. toes.Â
He additionally mentioned the federal government expects to finish about 9,500 new public housing items subsequent 12 months, shifting towards a objective 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 might be shortened to 4.5 years in 2026-2027.
The coverage tackle on Wednesday was Lee’s third in his five-year time period, and it had extra give attention to enhancing residents’ livelihoods and strengthening the town’s financial system than earlier than.
Prior addresses had been extra centered on problems with nationwide safety and post-pandemic restoration measures, with Lee taking up the town after a interval of civil unrest that led into the Covid-19 pandemic.
