ENG-1985 — Page 189

HOUSING

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management expenses and the high cost of maintenance and improvements. The authority was able to offset the deficit from income derived from its non-domestic (commercial) properties which in the same period generated $955 million against an expenditure of $455 million. Any surplus funds were used to finance the public housing construction programme.

The authority spent $2,443 million on its capital programmes, of which $1,941 million was financed by the government (mostly loans on concessionary terms) with the balance being financed from the authority's funds. In addition, the authority, acting as the government's agent, spent $608 million on the construction of flats for sale under the Home Ownership Scheme.

Construction

For the sixth year in succession, the Housing Authority exceeded in 1985 its annual production target of 35 000 flats. To maintain this momentum of construction, the authority is firmly committed to a programme of building more than 200 000 flats during the next five years. These will comprise 158 000 rental flats, 32 900 Home Ownership flats and 27 000 Private Sector Participation Scheme flats.

In 1985, 24 building contracts having a total value of $3,548 million were let. Of these, five were under the 'mechanised construction method' category, which is a more modern approach designed to increase efficiency and facilitate a very high quality of construction workmanship. This action has borne fruit as an increasing number of contractors are now gearing themselves up to use these modern construction techniques.

To further enhance the efficiency of the authority's work, à Computer Aided Draughting and Design (CADD) System was installed early in the year. It is expected to be fully operational in 1986, and will be another important tool in the implementation of the housing programme.

Home Ownership Scheme

The Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) is administered by the Housing Authority with funds from the government to provide comfortable and reasonably priced flats for sale to public housing tenants, and to lower-middle income families in the private sector. Since the Phase I sales exercise started in 1978, a total of 60 527 flats built under the HOS and the related Private Sector Participation Scheme (PSPS) have been sold to eligible families. About 42 per cent of these families were public housing tenants who, although not subject to restrictions on incomes and property ownership, were required to surrender their flats for reallocation to families in greater need of public housing. Applicants from the private sector are currently subject to a family income ceiling of $7,500 per month in order to keep these flats within the reach of the target population. Following a review of public housing allocation policies, the 'Green Form' priority status for public housing tenants to buy HOS flats was extended to include residents of temporary housing and cottage areas, waiting list applicants, households displaced by clearance of squatter areas for development and disaster victims.

Successful applicants from this enlarged category would no longer be eligible for public rental housing.

Four sales exercises were held during the year, and involved a total of 19 634 flats. The first exercise (Phase VIIA) took place in January when 3 776 flats were offered for sale with prices ranging from $96,000 for a 50 m2 (gross area) flat at Ching Shing Court, Tsing Yi, to $186,200 for a 64 m2 flat at Fung Shing Court, Sha Tin.