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The following is issued on behalf of the Housing Authority:
The Housing Authority will continue to co-ordinate with the Government to ensure an adequate and steady supply of land for public housing production to meet the community's demand.
The Director of Housing, Mr Thomas Chan, said this at the authority's regular open meeting today (July 6), in response to Members' views expressed at the annual special open meeting last month.
"We shall also review with the Government the actual usage of the land earmarked for other purposes, to see whether the land can be released for public housing development," Mr Chan said.
"To achieve the best utilisation of land without affecting living quality, we will maximise the development potential of land to ensure that valuable land resources will be used effectively and rationally," he added.
In response to some concern groups' call for rent reduction before reviewing the rent adjustment mechanism, Mr Chan said, "We accept that it is necessary to identify a rent level that is considered appropriate and acceptable to the community to provide a starting point for the new mechanism to operate. When considering how the rents are to be adjusted, we believe this should be looked into in parallel with which rent adjustment mechanism is to be adopted."
"Our analysis of the public opinions collected shows that the public is supportive of the most important reform proposal put forward in this review, that is to establish a rent adjustment mechanism which is rational, objective and reflects tenants' affordability. The majority of the respondents are in favour of adopting changes in tenants' household income as a basis for rent adjustment. " he said.
In response to the view that the Housing Department should not undertake estate management and maintenance of Tenants Purchase Scheme (TPS) estates on behalf of their owners' corporations (OCs) and property management agencies, by going beyond its authority and terms of reference, Mr Chan said that it was the Government's established policy to encourage flat owners to set up OCs to perform property management functions.
Since there are flat owners as well as authority's tenants in TPS estates, the authority, as one of the landlords, will assist OCs in the proper and effective management of the estates in accordance with the respective deeds of covenant and the Building Management Ordinance through its representatives in the OCs. In particular, authority representatives will render their relevant experience and professional advice to OCs in the selection of appropriate property management agencies during the tender stage," Mr Chan said.
"We are also aware of the residents' concerns over building maintenance. In this respect, apart from providing the seven-year Structural Safety Guarantee for TPS estates, the authority has also set up individual Maintenance Funds to meet their respective expenses on major maintenance items in common areas for the next 10 years. Detailed application of the Fund is stipulated in the deeds of covenant to ensure its proper keeping and management," Mr Chan said.
Talking about boosting shopper flow, reducing vacancy rate and enhancing environmental hygiene of the shopping centres, Mr Chan said, "In the Yau Tong Shopping Centre (Phase 4) Development recently under planning, an independent consultancy is commissioned by the Housing Authority to explore the introduction of as much commercial elements as possible in the design, with a view to making it a shopping venue that follows closely the market trend as well as responds to the ever-changing consumption patterns of the residents."
To stimulate shopper flow in the shopping centres and consumers' spending sentiment, the authority has been introducing reforms in its management and letting strategies, as well as soliciting shops of higher quality, enhancing the popularity and image of the shopping centres, further extending the well-received Parking Coupon Discount Scheme and implementing other initiatives such as reduced hourly parking rates and concessionary rate for "day parking".
Mr Chan said that the Housing Department was also actively exploring the conversion of some unpopular carparks or carparks with persistently low utilisation rate into homes for the elderly or other community facilities. The works project for conversion of part of the Tin Heng Estate carpark into social services facilities as well as civic and recreational centres began in June.
"The Housing Department will first convert the vacant parking spaces of carparks in Tin Shui Wai District into permanent community and recreational facilities. The conversion works, which will be completed by the end of 2006, will provide facilities including an integrated children and youth services centre, civic and recreational centres, conference rooms, multi-purpose function rooms and passive facilities for the use of local organisations and residents," he said.
To improve the environmental hygiene of markets and shopping centres, Mr Chan said the current Marking Scheme would be further enhanced at the end of this year, with the inclusion of additional misdeeds relating to environmental hygiene.
The aim of extending the Marking Scheme was to step up tenancy enforcement, and the statutory rights and obligations of the landlords and tenants under the existing tenancies would not be affected. Commercial tenants who have accumulated 16 points within two years will have their tenancies terminated by the department, Mr Chan said.
"The Housing Department will issue warnings before deciding whether to issue a notice-to-quit, and will consider the circumstances concerned so that enforcement actions will be taken in a justifiable manner," Mr Chan said, adding that the commercial tenants, like other tenants whose tenancies were terminated, had the right to file an appeal to the independent Appeal Panel.
"Apart from extending the Marking Scheme, the department will continue to promote clean culture campaigns in housing estates and present quarterly awards such as the Excellency Award for Toilet Management and the Best Hygiene Award for Food Premises, so as to encourage cleaning workers to maintain good hygiene on food premises in the shopping centres," Mr Chan added.
Ends/Thursday, July 6, 2006
Issued at HKT 18:41
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