01 view
Written by: Wang Junjie
2020-08-03 07:00
Last update date: 2020-08-03 07:02The term of office of the Chairman of the Housing Authority Subsidized Housing Group, Huang Yuanhui, expired on August 13. He chaired the meeting for the last time and expressed his farewell feelings a few days ago. Among them, he especially hoped to say "I'm sorry" to the public because he was unable to reverse the public housing waiting period. Bad situation. However, the supply of public housing is lagging in demand, and the Hong Kong government, which is leading the housing policy, is the culprit. As the chairman of the Housing Authority's Subsidized Housing Group, Huang Yuanhui is "intentional," but he is involuntarily involuntarily limited with limited power. Those who owe an apology to the public are actually those in power.
Huang Yuanhui, a senior banker in the background, has been appointed as a member of the Housing Authority since 2005 and left in 2011. However, he was re-appointed by the government after he resigned for a year. He has replaced Zhang Bingliang as the chairman of the Housing Group. He has served for eight years. There is an unwritten rule that a government office cannot exceed six years. In addition, Huang Yuanhui is known as the king of public office. In the past, he has served as the chairman of the Land Supply Task Force, a non-executive director of the Urban Renewal Authority, a member of the Hong Kong Housing Society, and the chairman of the Museum Advisory Committee and the chairman of the Environmental Advisory Committee. He has contributed a lot to the housing planning industry. .
Huang Yuanhui said he was ashamed of the public because his term of office failed to reverse the deteriorating public housing waiting list. In March 2012, there were about 190,000 public housing applications, with an average waiting time of 2.7 years. However, after eight years, the public housing waiting list has increased sharply by more than 250,000, and the waiting time has doubled to 5.4 years. Huang Yuanhui lamented that he has done his best and has been working hard to increase the land supply of public housing and the construction of public housing to improve the living environment of the subdivided housing and cubicle housing.
Huang Yuanhui presided over a meeting of the Subsidized Housing Group for the last time, and felt sad that the waiting time for public housing during his tenure was increasing. (Photo by Ou Jiale)
The caring person has limited ability
The supply of public housing is seriously lagging behind demand. The government often resorts to insufficient land supply, and the Housing Authority seems to be too clever to cook without rice. However, what really teaches Huang Yuanhui to be helpless, but it is the government's arbitrary land and housing policy. Farewell to the fall, Huang Yuanhui recently criticized the green home ownership policy. He believes that the government's permanent green home ownership plan and regularly transferring public housing units for sale will only worsen the waiting time, which is not ideal. , And emphasized that the housing problem that needs to be resolved today is "living" rather than "home ownership." However, "greening" public housing, claiming to solve the housing problem for residents, is one of the new housing policies advocated by Chief Executive Carrie Lam after taking office.
Undoubtedly, Huang Yuanhui rarely criticized the green home policy during his tenure, and even escorted the policy. For example, the Housing Authority converted 2,500 public housing units in Lai Chi Village, Cheung Sha Wan into green homes for sale that day after the permanentization of green homes. Huang Yuanhui also claimed that the waiting time for public housing will only be slightly extended, and the actual impact will be small. Nowadays, the attitude has changed sharply, and the public can definitely be regarded as parting and telling the truth, and Huang Yuanhui has not explicitly opposed the constancy of green homes during his tenure, and he has always lost to the grassroots. But from another perspective, this also reflects the inability of the Housing Authority to oppose the direction of the top-down housing policy. Even if Huang Yuanhui is an accomplice, the Hong Kong Government is the real culprit.
The inability of the Housing Authority to intervene in housing policy can also be reflected in the early years of the Wang Chau storm. In the early years, the government decided to develop 10,000 public housing units in Hengzhou Brownfield, but after "finding out" with the local squires, the development scale was greatly reduced to 4,000 units. However, in the whole process, the plan had to go through the Housing Department's land planning and other procedures before it came to the Housing Authority to discuss it. Wong Yuen-fai was also unclear about the government’s communication with stakeholders about the plan. The formulation of the plan and the political operations in the sub-sector are beyond the reach of the Housing Authority. However, when the interests of the grassroots are overridden by political interests, all Huang Yuanhui can do is continue to escort the plan, emphasizing that the government will build tens of thousands of public housing units in an easy and difficult way. The amount of public housing construction has decreased due to vested interests, and Huang Yuanhui is obviously not responsible for the greatest responsibility.
The grassroots owes it to the Hong Kong government
Housing policy formulation is involuntary, and the work within Huang Yuanhui's duties does not necessarily receive the government's attention. Huang Yuanhui was appointed as the chairman of the Land Supply Task Force in 2017, and then he was responsible for the land debate throughout Hong Kong. Although his final report received a lot of criticism, especially the proposal to develop part of the Fanling golf course first. It was questioned as a compromise under political pressure, but the result finally reflected a wide range of opinions in society. However, many of the land options proposed in the report, such as Huang Yuanhui, also feel that the progress is slow, and the development of golf courses is nowhere to be seen. In fact, before the report was published, Lam Cheng had taken the lead in releasing the Lantau Tomorrow Project. The scale of reclamation far exceeded the area recommended in the report. The work of the land supply team has long been questioned only for "lifting bridges", and Later, Carrie Lam said bluntly that "accepting all the results of the report" was just an irresponsible approach. It also proved that the government had despised the report’s recommendations and even broad public opinion. It can be seen that the supply of land and public housing in the future has never been determined by Huang Yuanhui.
The lag in the supply of public housing has always been the result of officials' lazy disregard of public interests. Huang Yuanhui’s role is not easy to do, and I believe the public is willing to accept one of his apologies. However, has the government, which is the culprit of the problem, still unaware that it owes the public?
The effect of the policy of exchanging homes for the elderly is questionable
Land resumption arrangement in Hengzhou is not ideal
Greenhouse "speculation" gradually begins, transfer restrictions should be stricter
01 depth
Wong Yuen Fai Housing Authority Carrie Lam Land Debate 01 Viewpoint