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Written by: Commentary Editing Room
2021-04-09 06:30
Last update date: 2021-04-09 06:30
The "Innovation Chamber" of the Hong Kong Science Park opened on Wednesday (7th). It rents out units to Science Park tenants, heads of incubation companies, non-local employees, and scientific researchers at a lower price than the market price. However, it is useful for attracting innovation and technology talents in the long run. As far as Hong Kong is concerned, this small "small room" is nothing but a drop in the bucket. The government must continue to improve the supporting facilities and stabilize the cost of living in Hong Kong before it can attract more talents to Hong Kong.
The "Innovation Chamber" proposal was proposed by the government in early 2017, and received a grant of 800 million yuan from the Legislative Council in February 2018.
The entire project covers an area of only 0.28 hectares. The building started in May 2019 and completed in October 2020. It is currently operating in a trial period. It will not officially operate until June this year. A total of 511 residential places can be provided. Both the private room and the double room are 248 square feet, and the monthly rent is 7,000 and 8,000 yuan respectively, which is about 60% of the rent of similar units in the market. Start-up companies may enjoy further discounts.
"Doro" can only relieve cough, high cost of living is still difficult
Judging from the large number of residents in the "Innovation Chamber", the demand for this type of housing from the employees in the park is indeed very high.
However, there are currently about 9,000 scientific researchers in the Science Park. Assuming that half of them are eligible for renting, only 10 to 20% of them can live in. I believe that most people can still only look forward to the room.
This situation is undoubtedly the result of Hong Kong's long-term neglect of foreign talents to live in Hong Kong.
In the 2020 "World Talent Ranking Report" of Lausanne School of Management, Switzerland, Hong Kong ranks 14th in overall talent competitiveness, lagging behind Nordic countries and Singapore, and the cost of living ranks as low as 60th.
In addition, in a survey commissioned by the Trade Development Council in 2019, respondents generally indicated that the cost of living in Hong Kong is relatively large and other cities in the Bay Area are high, and it is difficult to retain talents in Hong Kong.
As a city where home ownership is difficult and the rents for expatriate housing are high, Hong Kong's actual salary level after adjusting the cost of living is actually not much higher than that of the Mainland and Singapore.
InnoCell of Science Park Corporation opened.
(Photo by Chen Jiahui)
As a matter of fact, many innovation and technology companies start small, and start-up funds are hardly sufficient. Naturally, they are unable to subsidize their employees’ rent. Even the employees themselves may only have completed their degrees soon and may not be able to cope with the expensive housing costs in Hong Kong.
There should be land to build low-rent housing for talents
However, the government has always tended to let the employees and the companies that hire them arrange their own accommodation, and the chief official is at most responsible for planning residential land.
Take the Science Park as an example. Some medium and low-density private residential land has been designated adjacent to the scientific research building. The authorities' initial wishful thinking was that the personnel of science and technology enterprises were capable of renting these units. Unexpectedly, the property prices and rents were after the financial tsunami. It continues to soar. At present, the monthly rent of a one- or two-bedroom unit near the park easily costs 13,000 yuan, which can take up 30% or more of the monthly salary at any time.
In contrast to Hong Kong, many foreign city governments have already introduced various preferential housing measures to attract talents.
The Legislative Council's research document summarizes the housing welfare projects under the Talent Attraction Program of major cities in the Mainland and the Greater Bay Area, including rental subsidies and even the provision of rent-free units. The unit area can exceed 2,000 square feet. In contrast, Hong Kong now has the first of its kind. The completion of the building is really late.
Small and medium-sized units accounted for the largest share of sales in Pak Shek Kok. Among them, units with an area of more than 300 to 500 square feet sold 1,736 units, accounting for about 38% of the total.
(Photo by Cai Weinan)
While keeping up with the international trend of developing innovation and technology parks, the government must carry out peripheral planning with "advanced thinking", and reserve cheap and livable places for resident talents by mobilizing neighboring land uses.
It is a pity that Hong Kong government officials obviously lack relevant awareness. For example, in the early part of the world's innovation and technology boom from 2015 to 2016, the government only knew that four plots of land were sold in Pak Shek Kok in the Science Park for developers to build luxury houses; if it could be allocated at that time If a small portion of the land is used to build low-rent housing for talents, there will definitely be more units that can be provided than today's "innovative rooms".
Moreover, the construction of the "Innovation Chamber" in the Science Park reflects the fact that the government has finally begun to pay attention to the living facilities of talents, but similar projects that officials planned for the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Park in the Loop have failed to demonstrate this matter. Thinking ahead".
Judging from the documents of the Legislative Council, the first phase of the Science and Technology Park has a scale of 540,000 square meters, including laboratories, higher education and commercial facilities, but its "innovation chamber" accounts for only 1% of the area and accommodates only 100 places, which is too much. Underestimating the demand, the government should add more units to meet the demand.
On the one hand, officials should keep in mind that when planning industrial development in the future to enhance the competitiveness of cities, in addition to focusing on hardware such as infrastructure and communications, they must also improve the quality of life, especially by building low-cost housing to reduce the cost of living.
Of course, this policy should not only favor foreign talents, but also extend to local residents.
After all, high property prices and high rents are the culprits that push up Hong Kong's prices and aggravate life pressure.
If everyone no longer worries about housing, they will have more money, time and energy to develop their creativity and cultivate more innovative talents.
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