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HOUSING

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CLOSE to one million new flats will be built in the next 10 years in order to fulfil the government's aim of providing affordable housing for all those who need it.

Towards this goal, the Housing Authority, which is the delivery agent for the government, will be producing close to 60 per cent of the new flats required and offering them to the public through the various rental and home ownership schemes, with the Housing Department providing the construction, administrative and management services. The remaining 40 per cent of the flats are expected to be built by the private sector.

- The government provides the capital financing and the land for the authority to im- plement the housing programme as set out in the recently-adopted Long Term Housing Strategy.

Since the public housing programme began in 1953, more than 2.8 million people, or close to half the population, are now living in public housing. Although most of these people are living in rental premises, in some 135 estates, there is a growing number who are buying their own flats under the Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) and Private Sector Participation Scheme (PSPS) and the more recent Home Purchase Loan Scheme (HPLS) also operated by the authority.

During the year, the authority produced 54 000 new flats, comprising 34 000 rental units and 20 000 HOS and PSPS units, which were so much in demand that they were heavily oversubscribed. At the same time, it raised the amount of loan under the HPLS from an original $70,000 to $110,000, so as to increase the opportunities for assisted home purchase, and granted 1 200 loans under this scheme.

On average, rents for the authority's flats account for about seven per cent of tenants' income, while the home ownership scheme flats are offered for sale at about 30 per cent below the market rate.

While it is building new flats to increasingly higher standards and better designs, the authority is also redeveloping its older housing estates in line with its policy of improving residential living conditions to meet the higher aspirations of the tenants. It is also in- troducing innovative measures which will enhance construction efficiency and quality.

In all, the authority had about 150 000 flats under various stages of construction during the year, and spent some $6 billion on development and maintenance of its public housing projects.

In the next five years, it will be spending about $30 billion on new construction work. Apart from the work of the authority, the Hong Kong Housing Society continued to supplement the provision of public housing through its rental and rural public housing projects, urban renewal scheme and flats-for-sale scheme.

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