ENG-1991 — Page 220

13

HOUSING

FIRM plans have been made to ensure that, by the turn of the century, all Hong Kong people who need homes should be adequately housed.

The Housing Authority is the official organisation responsible for public housing and for advising the government on all matters relating to housing in the territory. Nearly 3 000 000 people already live in homes provided by the authority.

They live in some 645 000 flats in 146 rental estates, in addition to 144 000 self-owned premises in 95 estates also produced by the authority. Temporary housing is provided for people mainly cleared from the few remaining squatter areas, or victims of disasters, until permanent homes for them are available.

Under the Long Term Housing Strategy formulated in 1986 and being carried out by the authority, about 1 150 000 new flats, both public and privately built, were forecast to be needed to house everyone adequately by the year 2001. Nearly 500 000 flats have since been built; of the remainder, about 400 000 will be produced by the authority, while the rest are expected to be built by the private sector. The work of housing is never finished and the authority, it is envisaged, will need to continue to build homes for the people beyond 2001 to meet continuing demand.

The government provides capital assistance and land for the authority to implement the housing strategy. In the next five years, $41 billion will be spent on new construction work by the Housing Authority.

During the year, the authority completed a review of the domestic rent policy and allocation standards and formulated a new strategy to increase the supply of flats for small households.

Rents charged remain comparatively low, whether they are for the newest urban estates or the newest New Territories estates. Both are heavily subsidised compared with market value.

The authority has also offered a selection of rental blocks for sale to sitting tenants at a discount, formed an ad hoc committee to review the housing subsidy policy and made more flexible a Home Purchase Loan Scheme.

Apart from the work of the authority, the Housing Society continues to supplement the provision of public housing through its rental and rural public housing projects, urban renewal scheme and flats-for-sale scheme.

Public housing continues to be built at a high rate and there are at present as many as 130 000 flats being built at any one time in the various locations in the territory.

179