A few days ago, some developers put forward the concept of non-profit-making private subsidized housing projects through their social enterprises. They plan to sell residential units built at 50 to 60% off the market price under the premise that the government provides land premium concessions.
The Secretary for Transport and Housing, Chen Fan, subsequently welcomed the proposal and would continue to communicate with the developer. He even said that he hoped that other interested developers would contact the authorities, but he did not provide detailed agreements on the location of the project’s land and the preferential land premium. More information.
In addition to privately-funded housing projects, the developer and social enterprise also suggested that future government public rental housing or subsidized housing projects "bring in developers to be responsible for design and construction" to speed up their housing construction and reduce the burden on the government. The nature is similar to the "Private Institutions Participating in the Construction of Home Ownership Scheme" before 2002.
In response, Chen Fan only pointed out that private contractors can now join the Housing Authority’s project bidding, but added that future construction projects may introduce private participation through contracts.
Must seize the power to dominate the housing
Compared with the government's current "Land Sharing Pilot Program", private subsidized housing projects are obviously more dominated by developers.
The former at least still requires the developer to make up the land price after deducting the cost of infrastructure and the early stage of the project, and need to comply with some geographical restrictions set by the government authorities; on the other hand, the latter is basically equivalent to tacitly allowing the developer to freely choose the land he holds for development. At the same time, they can also use the name of "subsidies" to fight for higher land premiums from the government.
In particular, the land involved is only known to be located somewhere in the west of the New Territories. Therefore, some people outside have questioned the relevant plan and are also creating joint benefits for the developer's adjacent projects.
The land sharing pilot program has been accepted for applications from May 6, 2020, for a period of three years, until May 5, 2023 (data picture)
As for public housing, if private developers are introduced to participate in the construction, it is like the government giving up its full control over public housing and home ownership housing.
The experience of the "Private Institutions Participating in the Construction of the HOS Scheme" has long shown that some developers have added some bad designs to the buildings, such as the distance between the residential unit and the garbage room or the generator chimney directly facing the window, etc. Chen Fan also admitted the past There are "deficiencies" in this approach.
It can be seen that simply in order to accelerate the rate of housing construction, the government's leadership over housing is delegated to developers. The end result is that the people's living environment has the opportunity to be sacrificed.
What are the criteria for public money subsidies
On the other hand, regardless of the intention behind the proposal of privately-funded housing projects this time, it is certain that the relevant ideas have won applause from many developers and social enterprises. Once implemented, they will inevitably earn more business. reputation.
However, even though they claim that the project is not profit-making, the main discount for the project is actually provided by the government through the exemption of land premium, and the developer's own income has not been reduced much.
Although society can accept the Housing Authority, which is a public statutory body, to receive such concessions, it does not seem appropriate to switch to private developers.
From this perspective, the outside world may naturally question its suspicion of subsidizing private goodwill with public funds. The government authorities must clearly explain the arrangements for land premiums and their rationale.
In general, the nature of privately-funded housing projects is that developers choose land on their own and require the government to provide land premiums, and the promotion of participation in the construction of public housing is largely because they want to "get a piece of the pie."
In the short term, these measures may indeed increase housing supply, speed up construction, and allow more people to "get in the car" to buy properties, but they can only be used as a temporary stopgap measure. The Hong Kong government must not allow them to become the norm. Otherwise, It is no different from giving up the dominance of housing policy, and it will be of no benefit to Hong Kong society in the long run.
Public housing supply figures are inappropriately exaggerated
