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Change of rental flats to home ownership flats justified
Following is a question by the Hon Mok Ying-fan and a written reply by the Secretary for Housing, Mr Dominic Wong, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):
Question:
Will the Government inform this Council:
(a)
(b)
(c)
of the number of public rental flats since the implementation of the Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) as well as the number of flats which were originally designed for rental purposes but later converted into HOS flats;
whether the decision of the Housing Department (HD) to convert certain public rental flats into HOS flats is subject to the endorsement by the Housing Authority (HA) or the relevant committee of the HA; if not, why not; and
given the pledge made in Policy Commitment of last year's Policy Address to reduce the average waiting time for allocation of public rental housing to under five years by 2001, what measures are in place to ensure that the waiting time will not be extended as a result of the conversion of public rental flats into HOS flats?
Answer:
Mr President,
Since the implementation of the Home Ownership Scheme in 1978, over 460.000 public rental flats have been built, of which 32,000 have been transferred to home ownership flats.
The Home Ownership Committee of the Housing Authority is responsible for examining proposals relating to the transfer of public rental flats to subsidised home ownership flats. The projects and the number of flats involved are reported to the Housing Authority on a quarterly basis.