For as long as Hong Kong has been a concrete jungle, housing has been a key livelihood issue, and in recent years, a growing social and political problem. While we have managed to build skyward to put roofs over some 7.5 million heads across our limited land mass, property prices have been climbing and have become unaffordable to most.
Earlier this year, leading global real estate consultancy Knight Frank released a report naming Hong Kong as the world’s most expensive city to live in, followed by New York, Singapore and London. This ranking, however, does not take into account the very small size of Hong Kong’s housing units.
In other reports measuring the cost of living across the globe, Hong Kong has consistently ranked in the top five among cities such as Zurich, London, New York and Osaka — again, thanks to the high housing cost. Monthly rents in Hong Kong averaged $6.70 per square foot in 2020, compared to $4.44 per square foot in New York.
And given that the average living space per resident is the same size of a parking space (i.e., a mere 13.4 square meters per person), Hong Kong residents are having to contend with high rents and poor standards of living at the same time.
The result? Constant discontent among our population — namely, our youth — and deepened fears of social upheaval. Our elderly population is not getting a better deal either; most elderly homes are very cramped, thanks again to the high rents.
Vice-Premier Han Zheng, the top national leader overseeing Hong Kong and Macao affairs, noted in a recent meeting that Hong Kong’s housing issue is a concern shared by China’s top leaders.
Perhaps even more dire is the fact that the average waiting time for a public housing unit is currently five years and eight months — the highest in 22 years. But naturally, as our population has exponentially risen, so has the demand for homes
A few days ago, former chief executive Leung Chun-ying reminded Hong Kong of his recent proposal to use the fringe areas of Tai Lam, one of Hong Kong’s country parks, for building new public housing and not-for-profit homes for elderly people to accommodate our increasingly gray population.
Hong Kong boasts one of the highest life expectancies in the world; men 81.9 and women 87.6 years. At present, 18.4 percent of the population are aged 65 or above. There’s no doubt this figure will rise in the years to come.
Therefore, we also need to factor in the needs of our aging population and seriously consider where and how they will spend their golden years when they are still socially and physically active — in bed spaces, tiny subdivided units, or something more decent? The answers lie in how much land we have, and more accurately, how much building land we have for them.
Since our country parks currently account for 40 percent of Hong Kong’s land mass — in comparison, country park area in Singapore amounts to only about 2 percent of its land mass— Leung’s proposal is perfectly sensible and seems more than feasible. Let us also not forget that our country parks were expanded by an additional 2,360 hectares in 2008 during the Donald Tsang Yam-kuen administration, so we can certainly accommodate Leung’s ambitions to build 30,000 new homes for Hong Kong families using just 100 hectares of country park land.
These 30,000 units of 500 square feet each would be built on the 100 hectares of land that lies adjacent to the Tai Lam Tunnel toll plaza. This stretch of land has little ecological value, and accounts for only 0.2 percent of our total green space, so it would certainly not detract from the special administrative region’s natural environment.
Further, these new units would be sold at HK$6,000 ($773) per square feet (i.e., HK$3 million per unit). The selling price would cover the costs of infrastructure, site formation, and building costs. Therefore, financially the government would be in a no-gain and no-loss position.
This is certainly far more affordable than other housing solutions we currently have in place, and certainly more sustainable. And doing away with the means test would make the plan much simpler to comprehend. It also means that all Hong Kong permanent residents who do not currently own residential property would stand a chance of stepping onto the first rung of the housing ladder.
Leung also proposed that if the actual costs of producing the housing units fall below the selling price of HK$6,000 per square feet, the surplus would go into a fund to look after the maintenance and longer-term renovation costs of the estate.
Interestingly, this proposal has not met with much resistance from the environmentalists, nor real estate developers so far. They might be working behind the scenes to scuttle this project. But with our people suffering under such poor housing conditions, should we really be prioritizing whatever flora and fauna there are in Tai Lam over a basic human right?
Ironically, the government has announced the first round of results in its solution to our severe housing problem — compulsory acquisition of three sites in the New Territories that can only produce 1,300 units. This certainly pales in comparison to 30,000 new units in one go.
The government has given priority to the Lantau Tomorrow Vision — an ambitious land reclamation project that is still on the drawing board, which looks far into the horizon of at least 15 years away. Is it the solution needed right here and right now? There is a Chinese saying about solving problems, which goes something like: “Distant water will not put out a nearby fire.”
The sad thing about Leung’s proposal is that the government indefinitely suspended the consultancy study of building on part of the Tai Lam Country Park in 2018, without allowing the people of Hong Kong to see what the consultants have to say.
Perhaps even more dire is the fact that the average waiting time for a public housing unit is currently five years and eight months — the highest in 22 years. But naturally, as our population has exponentially risen, so has the demand for homes.
And it’s abundantly clear that without Leung’s proposal, this demand that the government is already struggling to meet will only deepen over time.
Hong Kong’s housing crisis has been in the works for decades, and we need to come up with a solution now. The housing shortage is one of the main social ills, which can run on to issues such as education, a deepened wealth gap and consequently stunted upward mobility. We need to address the housing needs of our citizens to enhance social harmony.
The author is president of Wisdom Hong Kong, a local think tank.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.