*************************************************
Following is a question by Dr Hon Kwok Ka-ki and a written reply by the Acting Secretary for Transport and Housing, Mr Yau Shing-mu, in the Legislative Council today (October 16):
Question:
The Chief Executive indicated in his Policy Address this year that the Housing Department (HD) would step up its efforts to combat the abuse of public rental housing (PRH) resources. Together with the PRH units surrendered voluntarily by tenants, on average a net number of about 7 000 units would be recovered every year. With another 15 000 or so new units completed, there would be more than 22 000 PRH units available for allocation a year. However, it was reported by the media in December last year that only 300-odd units of Lung Tin Estate, which had a total of 552 units, had been allocated since the first occupation 30 years ago, representing a vacancy rate as high as 40%. In view of this, the Government announced in February this year that the units in Tin Lee House of Lung Tin Estate would be converted into Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) flats to be put up for sale. It has also been reported that quite a number of the single-person units in Tin Yan Estate, Tin Shui Wai have been left vacant for a long time due to poor response because of their cramped toilets, and that there are PRH applicants who have been offered PRH units thrice in a row but have yet to find units in the districts of their preference. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) in respect of the units in each of the PRH districts (i.e. urban areas, extended urban areas, the New Territories and Islands) in each of the past five years, of (i) the number of PRH applicants who had opted for allocation of them, (ii) their average vacancy rate and (iii) the number of vacant one-person units among them (set out in the table 1);
(b) of the number of PRH applicants in the past five years who had been offered PRH units for the first time within three years after submission of applications; among them, the number of applicants who had refused the first offer of PRH units, and their main reasons for refusal; the number of applicants who had moved into PRH units within three years after submission of applications (set out in the table 2);
(c) of the number of PRH applicants who had accepted the allocation of one-person PRH units in the past five years, broken down by the age group to which the applicants belonged (set out in the table 3);
(d) of the current number of applicants on the PRH Waiting List; among them, the number of applicants for one-person units;
(e) of the number of cases of voluntary surrender of units by PRH tenants in each of the past five years;
(f) of the projected number of new PRH units in each of the years from 2013 to 2017 and, among them, the number of one-person units, broken down by the four PRH districts (set out in the table 4); and
(g) of the details of HD's plan in the coming five years to convert PRH units, apart from those in Tin Lee House of Lung Tin Estate, into HOS flats to be put up for sale and the number of units involved; the removal arrangements for the tenants of the housing estate concerned (including whether HD will arrange for in-situ rehousing and offer rent concessions)?
Reply:
President,
The Hong Kong Housing Authority (HA) upholds the principle of optimisation of public rental housing (PRH) resources. As soon as newly completed flats or refurbished flats become available, they are allocated to applicants on the Waiting List (WL) or in other rehousing categories.
For the sake of fairness, PRH flats are generally allocated by means of random computer batching. Applicants are not given any choice in respect of a particular housing estate, or the floor or the orientation of any flat on offer. WL applicants are entitled to three housing offers. Whether they accept the offers or not is purely a matter of personal choice. If the applicants decline an offer, the flat concerned will be allocated to other WL applicants, also chosen by random computer batching. Therefore, the vacant period of each flat depends on whether and when an applicant accepts it. Generally speaking, apart from the less popular flats that have been repeatedly offered and declined, there are always vacant flats awaiting refurbishment, or reserved for other rehousing categories, such as households affected by transfers or displaced by clearances etc.
The Housing Department (HD) has implemented the following measures to expedite the letting of less popular flats and those with a longer vacancy period:
(a) offering rent concession in respect of flats that have been left vacant for 12 months or more; and
(b) conducting the Express Flat Allocation Scheme (EFAS) exercise annually to let out less popular flats, so that some WL applicants may be allocated PRH flats at an earlier stage.
Overall, the vacancy rate of PRH flats has remained at a very low level. As at the end of June 2013, the vacancy rate stood at 0.5%, which was far below the performance indicator of 1.5%.
My reply to the various parts of the question raised by Dr Hon Kwok Ka-ki is as follows:
(a) In the past five fiscal years, the number of WL applications registered for the four districts, i.e. Urban, Extended Urban, New Territories and Islands, and the number of lettable one-person flats in these districts are summarised in the table 5.
Since applicants are allowed to change their PRH districts under the current policy; change in their family circumstances may also lead to shifting between general applications and Quota and Points System (QPS) applications; and the letting position of PRH flats differs each day, therefore, the figures above only reflect the position as at the last day of the respective fiscal year.
Regarding the vacancy rate of PRH flats, since the total number of flats is different in respect of different PRH districts, the vacancy rate of individual districts cannot reflect the overall vacancy position of PRH flats. The Housing Authority is currently adopting the performance indicator of maintaining the PRH vacancy rate at less than 1.5%. The overall vacancy rates at the end of the five fiscal years 2008/09 to 2012/13 were 1.3%, 1.0%, 0.9%, 1.0% and 0.6% respectively.
(b) Among the applicants successfully registered in the PRH Waiting List (Note) in the past five fiscal years, the number of applicants who received the first PRH offer within three years (with frozen periods deducted), the number of applicants who refused to accept the first flat offer, and the number of applicants who were housed in PRH flats within three years (with frozen periods deducted) are shown in table 6.
PRH flats are generally allocated by means of random computer batching. The reasons for refusing flat offers vary among the applicants. They include undesirable locations; inconvenient transport; unfavourable environmental factors of the allocated flats; and the applicants' requests for flats in new PRH estates, on upper floors or of bigger size.
(c) The number of applicants taking up one-person PRH flats in the past five fiscal years is shown in table 7 (since applicants having reached 60 years of age are considered as elderly applicants and not subject to the QPS, the age of 60 and above is used to define the group in the last column).
(d) As at the end of June 2013, there were about 118 700 general applications (i.e. elderly and family applications) on the PRH Waiting List, including some 9 200 elderly one-person applications. In addition, there are about 115 600 non-elderly one-person applications under the QPS. The aforesaid elderly and non-elderly one-person applications, if confirmed eligible, will be allocated with flats suitable for allocation to one person according to the prevailing allocation standard.
(e) In the past five fiscal years, the breakdown of figures for PRH flats recovered by the Housing Authority for reallocation through voluntary surrender and other means is shown in table 8.
(f) According to the latest Public Housing Construction Programme, the production figures of new PRH flats (breakdown by district) as estimated by the HA in the coming five years (2013/14 to 2017/18) are at the Annex, while the estimated numbers of 1/2-person PRH flats to be built are as follows:
Fiscal Year Number of 1/2 person flats *
----------- ----------------------------
2013/14 3 100
2014/15 2 800
2015/16 3 900
2016/17 3 000
2017/18 Number to be confirmed as
developments are under design
* Rounded to the nearest hundred
(g) Apart from Tin Lee House of Lung Tin Estate, the HA currently has no plans to convert other PRH flats into HOS flats for sale.
Note: Computed according to registration dates/equivalent registration dates.
Ends/Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Issued at HKT 15:46
NNNN
