The Deputy Financial Secretary, Mr Wong Wai-lun, recently chaired the second meeting of the "Action Working Group on Public Housing Projects" to further discuss the specific work directions for enhancing and speeding up the overall supply of public housing. Implement the "Public Housing Advance Plan", and study how to "speed up" and "improve efficiency" by applying the "assembly and synthesis" construction method and strengthening the collaboration of different departments.
The Chief Executive, Li Jiachao, stated in his election platform that he would lead the new government to "speed up, improve efficiency, and increase volume" as the goal, speed up the construction of land and housing, and shorten the waiting time for public housing, and the working group is exactly this concept one of the next policy measures.
However, neither the press release prepared by the Administration for the first meeting of the working group nor the post by Wong Wai-lun on social media to introduce the second meeting did not directly mention the "increase" of public housing.
Public housing increase should also be on the agenda
When the working group was established at the beginning of the month, the government document pointed out that its terms of reference were mainly to monitor the progress of the project and speed up the construction and occupation, but at the end it still stated that a working group would "discuss and formulate measures to increase the supply of public housing". That is, "increase volume" should also be regarded as one of the goals of this group.
It's just that the document also states that this task will be limited to "except for related measures to increase land supply under the responsibility of another coordinating group," which is the "Land and Housing Supply Coordination Unit" headed by the Financial Secretary, Paul Chan.
As for the terms of reference of the coordinating team, the government document states that it is to "supervise land supply and public and private housing supply from different sources at the macro level". However, the specific composition of the coordinating team has clearly included the Housing Department, Water Supplies Department, Drainage Services Department, social All members of the Working Group other than the Director of Welfare.
Regarding the working group on public housing projects, there is no reason to put the "increase" of public housing on the co-ordination group that is half of itself, ignoring the community's appeal for more public housing.
Short-term expansion cannot rely solely on quick results
Before the first meeting of the two groups, Chen Maobo delivered a speech at a ceremony and said, "The Action Working Group on Public Housing Projects, chaired by Deputy Director Wong Wai Lun, will aim to increase speed, volume and efficiency... Completed to boost the overall public housing completions in the next five years.”
This statement inevitably makes people worry that the authorities' assumption is to expand the interpretation of "speed increase" and "efficiency increase" as short-term "volume increase", simply to complete the public housing in the second five-year period ahead of schedule, and as a result, no additional units will be built on the whole.
Another example is Ho Wing-yin, Secretary for Housing, who is a member of the working group and the coordinating group. Not long ago, she said in a media interview that under the consideration of housing production and living quality, she believed that "increasing production" was a higher priority at present, but she continued. The specific work directions such as the compression planning process and the research speeding up time proposed are essentially aimed at "speeding up" and "efficiency", and they do not deal with the overall "quantity increase" of public housing in the true sense.
The Federation of Trade Unions held a kick-off ceremony to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the return of Hong Kong and the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the District Service Office.
The picture shows Chen Maobo.
(Information Services Department)
A multi-pronged approach to address the housing shortage
In fact, if you want to "increase the volume" of public housing in the short term, it is definitely not limited to the indirect options of "speeding up" and "improving efficiency".
Recently, the Housing Authority has applied to relax the plot ratio and building height restrictions in Tung Chung 103, so as to increase the number of local public housing units.
In addition, a few years ago, the private residential project above the Tin Shui Wai MTR Station passed the bid and was converted into a HOS flat, Ping Yan Court. It was just five years from rezoning and completion.
These are all good examples of short-distance "increasing volume", and the authorities should consider expanding their use.
Of course, if we want to increase the long-term housing supply, ensuring sufficient land is still an inescapable obstacle.
From the northern metropolitan area, the redevelopment of industrial buildings, to the expansion of the use of the Land Resumption Ordinance, etc., a large number of medium and long-term work options have been proposed for a group of officials in charge.
Whether it is in the name of a working group, a coordinating group or other names, the most important thing for them is to take practical actions to "break through" and stop delaying problems.
The key to land sales and demarcation - development leadership can get rid of self-financing constraints. Urban renewal can also build public housing to solve the land and housing problem. Why should the Financial Secretary wait for further research?