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HOUSING

Transit centres provide free emergency shelter for the homeless, including victims of fire and natural disasters, pending assessment of their eligibility for rehousing to permanent or interim housing. The Housing Department manages three transit centres with a total capacity of 864 places.

Housing Supply

Flat production in 2002 was 67 000. This comprised 34 000 flats in the private sector, 20 200 public rental housing flats and 12 8007 subsidised home ownership flats.

Monitoring Demand for and Supply of Land for Housing

The Government will ensure a sufficient supply of land together with the necessary supporting infrastructure to meet market demand. In order to achieve this, it would put in place a comprehensive monitoring mechanism and an early warning system to ensure the timely provision of land for residential development.

Planning Studies

The Government completed the feasibility study for intensification and extension of Tseung Kwan O new town. Another integrated study, the feasibility study on further development of Tseung Kwan O, was commissioned by the Territory Development Department in July and it is scheduled for completion in 2004. The studies related to the New Development Areas of North-East and North-West New Territories have proceeded to detailed layout plans preparation stage and are scheduled for completion in 2003. The study on Hong Kong Island South and Lamma Island is near completion, whereas the study on Western District Development is pending a review of major infrastructure.

Supporting Infrastructure

The Government continued to implement a list of infrastructure projects identified earlier as necessary to facilitate housing developments, which would otherwise be delayed due to lack of infrastructure support. Out of a total of 57 projects identified, 36 have been completed. The remaining 21 are at various stages of implementation. The total cost of the remaining projects is $8.1 billion. In the five-year period from 2002-03 to 2006-07, $4.8 billion will be spent on these infrastructure projects.

Private Sector Housing

Residential Property Prices

Properties were more affordable as average prices up to December 2002 were about 62.9 per cent lower than those at the market peak in October 1997. Property speculation was minimal. The average ratio of resale before assignment was 2 per cent in 2002, compared with 10.1 per cent at the peak in March 1997.

Tenancy Control

To simplify the statutory tenancy renewal and repossession procedures in the private domestic rental market, the Government introduced the Landlord and Tenant (Consolidation) (Amendment) Bill 2001 into the Legislative Council, and this was

7 Some of these flats will not be sold as home ownership flats and will be used for other purposes.