During the national "two sessions" last year, when Han Zheng, the vice premier of the State Council in charge of Hong Kong and Macao affairs, met with the National People's Congress in Hong Kong, he solemnly pointed out that Hong Kong needs to solve the housing problem; Once again, it is proposed that Hong Kong must do a good job of "top-level design" and solve the housing problem as soon as possible.
In one year, the average waiting time for general PRH applicants has been extended from 5.7 years to 6 years, and the residential property price index for all categories has risen slightly from 381.9 to 388.9.
Of course, the SAR government is not inactive, but there is indeed nothing that can be expected to "say goodbye to subdivided housing". In the final analysis, I am afraid that there is a problem with the values and beliefs of some elites in Hong Kong, because they may think that capital is a problem. In a socialist society, the existence of "residential injustice" must always be tolerated.
During the "two sessions" last year and this year, Han Zheng, the vice-premier of the State Council in charge of Hong Kong and Macau affairs, said that Hong Kong must solve the housing problem, but this year there was almost no progress on the issue.
(Xinhua News Agency)
"Farewell to the subdivided room" can't be said
"Residence Justice" may be a "mythical" existence for most Hong Kong people. Everyone hopes to "live and work in peace and contentment", but still silently endure the exploitation brought about by the capitalist society.
Vice Premier Han Zheng of the State Council first raised the issue of housing in Hong Kong to Hong Kong representatives during the National "Two Sessions" in March last year. However, the relevant issues have not yet been officially put on the agenda by the SAR government. For example, the Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po, who had actively responded to the saying of "farewell to subdivided housing", in the "Budget" just released at the end of last month even only Needless to say, the land and housing policy is also a new bottle of old wine to match the last "Policy Address" of Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor.
All these things really make people doubt whether the SAR Government has the determination to solve the housing problem.
Have the authorities already "lying on their backs" to the point where they can be concerned about state leaders and demand that "the left ear goes in and the right ear goes out"?
Could it be that for these elites running Hong Kong, the issue of "residence injustice" has never been a problem?
Now that Han Zheng once again said that Hong Kong must do a good job of "top-level design" and solve the housing problem as soon as possible, what will the elites in Hong Kong think?
In fact, only by establishing correct values can we find the right solution. That is to say, before constructing the overall reform plan from a macro perspective, the SAR government should uphold the value and belief of "residence justice".
The residency rights of most people in Hong Kong can be guaranteed, but the well-being of a small "proletariat" cannot be taken lightly.
(file picture)
A good understanding of "Residence Justice"
When talking about "justice", it is inevitable to mention "human rights", and "the right to live" is a basic human right.
The right of residence in the narrow sense can be regarded as a private right, which refers to the right to possess and use the house and other attachments, that is, "ownership"; conditions, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has long recognized this right and stated that the state or local government needs to ensure that everyone has access to reasonable housing.
However, in a capitalist society that emphasizes private property rights, many people think that as long as they have "private rights", it means that "public rights" will not be violated, and even think that the reason why "public rights" cannot be guaranteed is due to certain People do not have enough ability to obtain "private rights" - this confusion undoubtedly leads to the continuous weakening of the right to live, and the social distribution structure is becoming more and more unequal but unjust, that is, the injustice of distribution leads to the injustice of housing.
Western countries have tried to introduce the concept of "distributive justice" to achieve "housing justice". The "International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights" adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1966 is based on "housing justice" and proposes "the right to adequate housing". ”, referring to the right of everyone to live in a place in peace, security and dignity, which covers seven important conditions, and states that “adequate housing is not only a roof with tiles and four walls, but also a place to live. Dignity and safety should not be regarded as commodities.”
It can be seen that the government's responsibility is not only to ensure that everyone has a house to live in, but also to make people live in peace and comfort.
It is a pity that when comparing the most criticized "subdivided housing" in Hong Kong with the seven conditions of "adequate housing" listed in the Convention, the "livability" and "infrastructure" alone are already terrible - the per capita living area It is extremely low, the sanitation environment is quite poor, and it is extremely dangerous.
As for "housing rights protection" and "affordability", the "Report of the Research Working Group on "Subdivided Housing" Tenancy Control Research" found that more than 80% of the subdivided housing spaces are "three no buildings", and subdivided housing tenants monthly At least one-third of income goes to housing expenses.
Reshaping Hong Kong's "residence justice" needs to start with "farewell to subdivided housing", but it is by no means limited to "farewell to subdivided housing".
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"Residential Alienation" must be put to an end
What is even more tragic is that many people think that there are about 7.5 million people in Hong Kong, and only more than 200,000 people currently live in subdivided housing, which means that the right to adequate housing for the majority of people is guaranteed. Most of these people believe that the existence of class will inevitably accompany it. Unequal interests naturally require part of the "proletariat" to afford "low-end housing", but the reality is that the subdivided housing phenomenon is only one of the manifestations of "residential poverty" formed by the lack of "living justice" in cities.
According to the paper "On the Reflection and Reality of Housing Justice for Shared Development Concepts" published by Zhang Yan, Deputy Dean of the School of Marxism, Zhejiang University, and his student Wang Changhe, "residence poverty" is closely related to capital's pursuit of profit and the generalization of power.
From the perspective of Hong Kong issues, the SAR government and real estate developers advocate the use of housing products as a tool for investment profit. As a result, the living cost of the citizens continues to rise, the economic burden continues to increase, and the consumption level and quality of life are deteriorating, forming a kind of housing. The disconnect between supply and demand and the structural imbalance caused by the financial bubble crisis have resulted in the "non-equalization" of unequal distribution of wealth, making the general public feel "deprived", and then creating the risk of "residential segregation".
"Residential segregation" means that different social classes live in communities with obvious heterogeneity due to differences in economic status and other factors, forming "residential classes" that are differentiated and isolated from each other.
What needs to be more vigilant is that when "residential poverty" and "residential separation" continue to increase, there will be a problem of "residential alienation" that is extremely unfavorable to the harmonious development of people and society - housing resources are regarded by society as a way to promote capital production and realization. A tool for profit appreciation, and then transformed into a power to "control" and "dominate" residents; when the housing needs and the process of satisfying them are no longer to satisfy people's good life and promote social development, it will make people have material possessions. Excessive dependence has led to the expansion of "over-occupancy of housing resources" and the "living poverty effect". All the top classes can monopolize multiple properties per person, but society is faced with the lament of "there are no houses to live in, and no one to live in." .
Therefore, if we want to reshape the "housing justice" of society, it is not just "farewell to subdivided housing", but also needs to liberate the vast majority of the general public who suffer from living poverty, residential segregation and residential alienation.
Ye Yiming believes that the biggest problem is that after 2000, the government did not plan any new land supply for about ten years in order to rescue the property market hit by the financial tsunami.
(Photo by Zheng Zifeng)
Start with supply and demand, planning, sub-rental and land price
Of course, before "farewell to subdivided housing", we must carefully explore the structural difficulties of these subdivided housing and inappropriate housing, including the disconnection of housing supply and demand, improper urban planning, rampant rent-seeking activities, and reliance on land price income, etc., and then think about which ones It must be deconstructed through institutional reforms.
First of all, from the data on the subsidized housing population, about half of the subsidized housing households in Hong Kong have been waiting for public housing for several years, which proves that the lack of public housing construction is one of the reasons for the demand for subsidized housing.
The problem of housing supply has plagued the British Hong Kong government for decades. The population of Hong Kong slowly expanded from the 1950s and 1960s, resulting in a serious shortage of housing supply.
Even though MacLehose, the then Governor of Hong Kong, implemented the "Ten-Year Housing Plan" after he arrived in Hong Kong in the 1970s, there were still nearly 750,000 squatters who could not be resettled by the end of the plan.
Ye Yiming, a professor at CityU's Department of Public Policy, believes that the 20-year period from the 1990s to the early 2000s was the "golden time" to solve the housing problem, but the government failed to grasp this period to solve the problem of inappropriate housing .
He continued to point out that the then Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa launched the "85,000 Housing Project" in 1997, which exhausted the most accessible land without proper planning; and the biggest problem was that after 2000, the government was hit by the financial tsunami because it wanted to rescue In the real estate market, there was no plan for new land supply for about ten years. ) ‘Watershed’.”
Secondly, improper urban planning is also the reason for the increase in the population of subdivided housing. According to statistics, a considerable part of the households are young working people, and these people may live in new towns and are far away from their work places, which makes them choose Live in urban subdivisions.
Wu Meiqin said that the biggest problem in Hong Kong at present is how to make the quality and opportunities of a region equal.
(Photo by Ou Jiale)
Wu Meiqin, Professor of the Department of Geography and Resource Management at CUHK, explained that since the second generation of new towns, their urban planning has lost the elements that a community should have, such as Shatin, Tuen Mun, etc., and the development of the whole city has become too " tidy".
The so-called "cleanliness" means that the new town lacks "chores" or lower-level job opportunities. Wu Meiqin once interviewed the residents living in prefabricated houses in the old district. Even if some people have successfully "upstairs", they would rather live in Apart from the fact that the public housing is too far away and the transportation cost is expensive, the biggest problem with the pre-planned housing is that there is no job.
The old area can allow the existence of "small businesses" on the ground floor, and the area is usually more human. Wu Meiqin said that these stores will provide "walking places" for employees, and the working hours will be more flexible.
However, the new towns that have lost these elements have also made some grassroots citizens lose their motivation to live, making them choose to continue living in subdivided housing.
Therefore, to "say goodbye to subdivided housing" not only requires more land and faster housing construction, but also requires good urban design. If the government is only obsessed with building houses as soon as possible, and casually "shoves" grassroots citizens into these houses, they will The motivation to work or live in urban areas will not change, and the demand for subdivided housing will still exist.
Third, the existence of subdivided housing is actually a market response mechanism that responds to supply and demand. The poor environment and high rent of subdivided housing are all caused by economic incentives brought by the capital market.
Cai Hongda, deputy head of the Department of Real Estate and Construction at the University of Hong Kong, tried to solve the chaos of subdivided housing with the theory of "economic rent".
Economic rent refers to the difference between the income of factors of production and its opportunity cost. For example, when land is built into buildings and sold, some "factors of production" will be generated between land and buildings, such as various labor or Material resources, and the expensive rents in the subdivided housing market are formed from these "factors of production". When the owners transform ordinary units into subdivided housing units, the owners can charge high rents according to the economic rental value of the subdivided housing.
In addition, Cai Hongda also put forward a highly controversial argument that the injustice in the subdivided housing market was caused by the Hong Kong government's earlier intervention in the property market, including subdivided housing rent management and property market "hot tricks".
However, if the government does not regulate the property market with "spicy measures", property prices and rents may skyrocket more uncontrollably. Even if subdivided housing is the market's response mechanism, it does not mean that the government does not have the responsibility to properly control this.
Fourth, Li Junrong, a lecturer at PolyU's School of Professional and Continuing Education, believes that the problem of subdivided housing is not just a capitalist problem, but a problem with the city's fiscal and taxation system.
He pointed out that the construction of public housing is slow, or that only people at the bottom of the society can live in public housing. This approach is to protect the interests of large and small owners, and it also prevents the government from spending too much on building public housing units.
He went on to point out that the more subsidised housing the government builds, the more it needs to undertake, so the government tends to build more HOS housing so that the HA can earn income from it.
This approach of the government shows that they are conservative in the fiscal and taxation system, which has always made the government unwilling to increase the supply of public housing and create demand for sub-divided housing in disguise.
On the other hand, Chen Jianqing, a member of the local research society, believes that the subdivided housing problem stems from the failure of the housing tax system to isolate speculation from entering the housing market, making the market unable to focus on users.
Chen Jianqing explained that the housing tax system is a secondary distribution of housing resources to ensure that all units in the market can be distributed evenly.
Hong Kong currently lacks first-hand property vacancy tax and other comprehensive housing tax systems, and housing resources are easily monopolized by developers, making property prices more and more expensive, and ultimately forcing grassroots citizens to live in subdivided housing.
Li Junrong believes that the problem of subdivided housing is not only a problem of capitalism, but a problem of the city's fiscal and taxation system.
(Photo by Zheng Zifeng)
"Farewell to a Subdivided Room" Impossible Mission
Under the "injustice of living", sub-divided houses are teeming with chaos. It is by no means easy to "say goodbye to sub-divided houses", but "not easy" is not a reason for politicians to neglect.
In fact, as long as the governance concept of fairness and justice is adhered to and the development policy of shared prosperity for all, it is not an impossible task to "say goodbye to subdivided housing" for all inappropriate housing.
However, the society is still in a passive attitude towards solving the problem of subdivided housing, and does not dare to change the entire housing policy drasticly.
In recent years, the government has introduced two measures to "relieve" the problem of subdivided housing - transitional housing policy and subdivided housing rent management, but these two solutions are not the solution to "living poverty" completely.
Let’s talk about the transitional housing policy first. The outside world has always criticized transitional housing as a temporary solution rather than a permanent solution, because residents can only live in the transitional housing for two to three years, regardless of whether they can “go upstairs” after the expiration of their residence period, they must then "Walk away".
In fact, the grassroots are also full of concerns about transitional housing, because the supply of transitional housing is extremely insufficient, so the grassroots citizens need to interview and draw lots after applying to have the opportunity to move into the unit. Funds cover the rent. He described the policy arrangement as a "roadblock". Even if the interview is successful, he has to face a lottery. "It's like buying a Mark Six lottery. They set up a lot of roadblocks. Do they want to help others or make it a little more difficult?"
Despite this, Chen Jianqing still believes that the construction of a large number of transitional housing in a short period of time will help impact the sub-sector housing market, but the premise is that the government and relevant stakeholders need to improve the supporting facilities of transitional housing, such as extending the number of years for grassroots residents to live, providing various funding, etc.
However, instead of spending years searching for land and building a limited number of transitional housing, why not just make good use of the land to build public housing and permanently solve the housing dilemma at the grassroots level?
Mr. Li, a subdivided tenant, pointed out that the main question in the interview is whether the applicant has enough funds to pay the rent, describing the policy arrangement as a "roadblock".
(Photo by Yu Junliang)
The key is to regain the dominance of land development
As for the subdivided house rent management, Ye Yiming also questioned its effectiveness, believing that there are two major loopholes in the provisions - one is that there is no "starting rent", which means that the landlord can increase the rent before the implementation of the subdivided house rent management; The rent is linked to the quality of living, which means that the ordinance allows landlords to set expensive and unreasonable rents based on market prices, no matter how bad the environment is.
Chen Jianqing also believes that the regulations cannot be strictly followed by landlords, and there are gray areas. For example, TPS does not use "lease agreement", but uses the name of "service agreement", which can basically bypass rent management.
He pointed out that there is room for subdivided housing rent management to become more aggressive, such as not allowing landlords to increase rents and freezing market rents.
Of course, subdivided housing rent management is only a short-term measure to relieve the pressure of subdivided housing residents. Even if the loopholes in the regulations have been plugged, it does not mean that the subdivided housing problem has been solved.
To completely "say goodbye to subdivided housing", the government needs to increase the housing supply as soon as possible in the future, especially the supply of public housing. Before that, the government's primary task was to find land.
"Hong Kong 01" has always advocated that the government should set up a land resumption fund of at least 200 billion yuan, and use the Land Resumption Ordinance to take back land from developers to build public housing and public infrastructure.
Cai Hongda suggested that the government can find some formal ways for developers to donate land by themselves, and these lands will be permanently taken back by the government, and some lands have already been planned for the construction of transitional housing, public housing or other types of housing. .
However, there are many comments from the outside world that there is a risk that developers will voluntarily donate land to build transitional housing - these lands will be taken back by developers to build private buildings after the completion of the two-year transitional housing, and Cai Hongda admits that there will be such situation happens.
Therefore, he suggested to use the method of "land zoning" to let developers donate land. After the land is planned by the government, part of the land will be reserved for the construction of public housing and public infrastructure, and the developer will hand over part of the "developer's responsibility land". Afterwards, the re-planned land in the original area can be exchanged for the re-planned land in the original area.
The government can also place the dominant power in it, requiring developers to make up the land price within a certain period, otherwise the government will take back the land.
Of course, these public-private solutions are not "one-size-fits-all" solutions. Therefore, the Government should also use the Land Resumption Ordinance as a backup plan to ensure absolute land ownership.
In addition, the "northern metropolitan area" is also the key to "farewell to subdivided housing".
Wu Meiqin said that the biggest problem in Hong Kong now is how to make the quality and opportunities of a region equal.
Grassroots citizens prefer the "human touch" and job opportunities of old districts. Therefore, the "Northern Metropolis" must have a more mixed planning. It should not only be turned into an "innovation and technology base", but it lacks the living space of grassroots citizens.
She suggested that the government could create a local economy in this district, allowing some types of work that existed in old districts, such as washing dishes in cafeterias, so that grassroots citizens living in subdivided housing would be willing to move into this district even if they were offered public housing in the New Territories.
Furthermore, the government needs to improve its housing policy objectives and should no longer be dominated by home ownership.
Chen Jianqing pointed out that the current government hopes to privatize public housing and the trend of privatization is becoming more and more serious. Although the government claims that there will be 300,000 public housing prices in the "Northern Metropolitan Area" in the future, it is difficult to keep most of the flats for sale as HOS flats. , making it unaffordable for grassroots citizens.
Therefore, the government should re-examine the goal of housing policy and take "housing justice" as the main policy, so that there will be a day of "farewell to subdivided housing", "the government's current actions will not lead to the outcome of "farewell to subdivided housing", as long as The government will not change the existing whole-unit housing strategy, and even if (the government) continues to rebuild old buildings through developers in urban areas, subdivided housing will continue to exist in different forms.”
Farewell to the in-depth report series on subdivided housing:
Say goodbye to the dorms! 1｜Reshaping "housing justice" starts with banning "low-end housing"
Say goodbye to the dorms! 2｜Four major causes of residential injustice: supply and demand disconnection, improper planning, rampant sub-rental, and reliance on land prices
Say goodbye to the dorms! 3｜It is not an impossible task to correct the mistake of the home-buying-dominant housing policy "everyone lives in a big house"