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Following is a question by the Hon Fred Li and a written reply by the Secretary for Transport and Housing, Ms Eva Cheng, in the Legislative Council today (April 25):
Question:
In recent years, I have received complaints from quite a number of families of four persons or more which are applying for public rental housing (PRH) that they have been waiting for a very long time but have yet to be allocated PRH units, and that even those with elderly family members are not allocated PRH units within three years, let alone priority allocation for elderly persons. In reply to a question from a Member of this Council in February this year, the Government indicated that at present, the demand for large units remained strong and PRH units accommodating larger households were in short supply. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of the number of large PRH units allocated to family applicants with four or more members in each of the past three years; the average waiting time of those family applicants with four or more members which were allocated PRH units, and the number of those which had waited for more than three years; if the relevant figures are not available, of the reasons for that;
(b) of the current number of family applicants with four or more members on the Waiting List for PRH (together with a breakdown by their waiting time, i.e. less than three years, three to less than four years, four to less than five years, and five years or more); if the relevant figures are not available, of the reasons for that;
(c) whether the authorities collect information on the waiting time of family applicants with four or more members on the Waiting List through the annual Survey on Waiting List Applicants for Public Rental Housing; if not, of the reasons for that;
(d) of the numbers of newly completed or refurbished large PRH units available for allocation to family applicants with four or more members in each of the next five years according to the authorities' projection, together with a breakdown by district; and
(e) of the means (including whether existing construction arrangements will be reviewed with a view to building more large PRH units) by which the authorities can accelerate the provision of large PRH units for allocation to family applicants with four or more members?
Reply:
President,
It is the objective of the Government and the Hong Kong Housing Authority (HA) to provide public rental housing (PRH) to low-income families who cannot afford private rental accommodation, with a target to maintain the Average Waiting Time (AWT) of general Waiting List (WL) applicants (excluding non-elderly one-person applicants under the Quota and Points System) at around three years. My reply to the Hon Li's question is as follows:
(a) to (c) In 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11, about 4 700, 2 900 and 2 700 flats respectively have been allocated to WL applicants with a household size of four persons or above.
In view of the public's concern on the waiting time of WL applicants, especially those applications with waiting time over three years, the HA conducted a detailed analysis in 2011, including going through the relevant records manually, to understand the situation of applicants with longer waiting time. According to the information available at that time, as at end June 2011, there were 24 800 applications with a household size of four persons or above on the WL. Among them, applicants with waiting time of three years or above and without any flat offer are set out as follows:
Applications with a household size of four persons or above on the WL with waiting time of three years or above and without any flat offer
(as at end June 2011)
3 years to less than 4 years 2 800
4 years to less than 5 years 1 800
5 years or above 600
Note: Figures are rounded to the nearest hundred.
The analysis also showed that, among the general WL applicants rehoused between July 2010 and June 2011, over half of them received the first offer within two years and most of them received the first offer within three years.
For the rehoused general WL applicants who received their first offer at or after three years, the analysis showed that most of them opted for PRH flats in the Urban and Extended Urban Districts. In general, this reflects the popularity of the Urban and the Extended Urban Districts, and thus WL applicants opting for these two Districts were more likely to have a longer waiting time than WL applicants opting for other Districts. Similarly, for the general applicants on the WL with waiting time of three years or above and without any flat offer, most of them also opted for the Urban and Extended Urban Districts.
We pay due regard to the general WL applicants with particularly long waiting time. The study result revealed that roughly over half of the cases involve special circumstances of various kinds, including cancellation periods (the applicants were ineligible for rehousing during the periods concerned. If the cancellation periods are excluded, their waiting time would in fact be shorter), location preference on medical or social grounds, etc.
We will continue to closely monitor the waiting time of WL applicants, especially the situation of those with longer waiting time; and report to the HA on the situation of WL from time to time.
(d) to (e) As for new PRH production, a total of about 75 000 PRH flats will be built by the HA during the five-year period starting from 2011-12. Of these, about half of them are one-bedroom flats or two-bedroom flats which can be allocated to larger families. As for refurbished PRH flats, it depends on the number and types of recovered flats in the future period.
In response to the demand for larger units from PRH applicants, the HA would make effort in two areas, i.e. the recovery of and the production of PRH.
On recovery of PRH flats, the HA decided in October 2010 to accord priority in handling about 2 500 most serious under-occupied households without elderly or disabled persons. We believe it could help increase the supply of PRH flats of larger size.
On new PRH production, the HA will continue to regularly review the flat mix for new flat production having regard to the distribution of household size of WL applicants, population and household projections, etc, in order to meet the demand of applicants with different household sizes.
Ends/Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Issued at HKT 11:56
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