Source : Straits Times - 18 Sep 2008
Hong Kong’s public rental housing system has thrown some ideas out for the Housing Board to mull over.
Senior Minister of State (National Development and Education) Grace Fu, who is leading a Singapore delegation to the territory, said about a third of Hong Kong’s population lives in 670,000 rental flats.
These comprise a wide range of homes catering to different family sizes and circumstances.
The Hong Kong Housing Authority (HKHA), which administers rental housing, provides flats at subsidised rates for as long as 10 years.
It also has ‘interim’ and ‘transit’ housing for families waiting to move into rental flats or those rendered homeless temporarily.
Ms Fu said Hong Kong’s ‘product offering is wider, and it provides good ideas for us’.
Over the past two days, the Singapore delegation has been meeting officials from the HKHA and the Hong Kong Housing Society (HKHS) and visiting public and elderly housing projects. The delegation is on a three-day working visit that will end today.
Ms Fu told reporters yesterday that Hong Kong has a different priority system for its rental flats. It has three queues - for the elderly, families with elderly members, and singles - with varying average waiting time. The family’s income levels and assets are used in the eligibility criteria, and rents are determined according to incomes and not pegged to market rates.
These are ideas ‘worth considering as well’, Ms Fu said.
The HDB is currently reviewing the eligibility criteria for rental flats, which have seen a surge in demand in the past year.
The waiting time for a new flat has now stretched to nine to 18 months from just two to six months two years ago.
Aljunied GRC MP Cynthia Phua, a member of the delegation, has suggested that perhaps it is time to review the percentage of rental flats in Singapore, which is now on the ‘low side’.
One quirky initiative that MPs have suggested is a points-system for tenants that the HKHA uses, where tenants get penalised for anti-social behaviour like littering. If they accumulate a certain number of points, they lose their right to stay in their flats.
Ms Fu stressed that while Singapore can take a leaf from Hong Kong’s rental policy book, the government’s role in each place is very different. Singapore’s focus is on home ownership, while Hong Kong’s is on providing comprehensive, low-cost rental housing, she said.
Another area that the HDB is also studying is housing for the elderly.
The HKHS, a non-governmental housing organisation, is piloting a new, mixed-use development that will integrate private homes with elderly housing, said its chairman, Mr Yueng Ka Sing.
Under this experiment, the first 10 floors of a 34-storey block will be reserved for senior citizens, while younger families can live on the upper floors.
The HKHS also recently rolled out two ‘retirement resorts’ for the middle- to upper-income elderly, where those over 60 years old can pay an upfront sum as a lifetime lease to live in a condominium-like home, with health and medical care provided.
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