ENG-2014 — Page 227

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Housing

PRH general applicants and 137,300 applicants under the Quota and Points System (QPS). The average waiting time for general applicants was 3.2 years.

Rent Policy

The HKHA's long-established policy is to set PRH rents at affordable levels. PRH rents are inclusive of rates, management and maintenance costs, and monthly rents ranged from $315 to $4,264 per flat as at December 2014, with the average being about $1,700. Under the existing income-based rent adjustment mechanism, rents may be adjusted upwards or downwards according to changes in tenants' overall household income. PRH rent reviews are conducted every two years. The most recent rent review was completed in July 2014.

Rent Assistance

The HKHA's Rent Assistance Scheme (RAS) helps public housing tenants facing temporary financial difficulties and currently offers eligible tenants rent cuts of 25 or 50 per cent. As at the end of December, about 15,800 households were receiving RAS.

Better-off Tenants

Better-off tenants are required to pay higher rents. At the end of December, about 22,200 households were paying higher rents. Tenants who have lived in public housing estates for 10 years or more have to declare household income biennially. Those with a household income exceeding the prescribed income limit set by the HKHA or who choose not to declare their income have to pay additional rent. Households with total household income and net assets both exceeding the prescribed income and asset limits, or those who choose not to declare their household assets, are required to move out.

Estate Clearance

The clearance of Blocks 1, 2, 3 and 12 of Pak Tin Estate was completed in April 2014, with about 2,900 people from 900 families rehoused. The clearance of Long Bin Interim Housing's eight blocks will require about 820 people from 500 families to move out. By December, about 360 people from 230 families had been rehoused or moved out.

Sustainable Public Housing Stock

The HKHA adopts a life-cycle maintenance strategy to keep its public housing stock economically, socially and environmentally sound. Since the introduction of the Total Maintenance Scheme in 2006, some 733,000 flats have been checked and on the spot minor repairs or improvements made, with 77,000 flats in 56 estates checked in 2014.

Estates over, or approaching, 40 years old are monitored under the HKHA's Comprehensive Structural Investigation Programme to ensure they are safe to live in and are economically sustainable.

4 Waiting time refers to the time taken between registration for PRH and the first flat offer, excluding any 'frozen' period (such as when the applicant has not yet fulfilled the residence requirement; the applicant has requested to put his/her application on hold pending arrival of family members for family reunion; etc). The average waiting time for general applicants refers to the average of the waiting time of those general applicants who were housed to PRH in the past 12 months.

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