Policy Add. Forum: 2030/31 public housing wait time aims at <4 yrs

Speaking at the Policy Address forum tonight, Chief Executive John Lee reveals that the government has introduced a new target for the overall public rental housing waiting time, aiming to trim it to four years or less as early as 2030/31, while increasing the proportion of larger flats in the future Northern Metropolis development.

To address housing woes. the remaining 4,000 of the 30,000 Light Public Housing units will be completed successively before the end of March next year, achieving the target ahead of schedule.

The overall public rental housing waiting time has dropped to a latest figure of 4.8 years, with general applications and non-elderly singleton applications decreasing by over 30% and 40% respectively.

Chief Executive John Lee says over the next five years, the government will vigorously increase public housing supply, reaching 196,000 units when combined with Light Public Housing. He is confident that the comprehensive waiting time will drop to the target of 4.5 years within the current financial year, and further fall below four years by 2030/31.

In addition to faster flat allocation, starting from 2031/32, the proportion of larger subsidized sale flats with an area of about 45 square metres or more completed in the Northern Metropolis will increase from the current 20% to 25%. To encourage upward mobility among owners, the resale restriction period for subsidized sale flats first sold between 2022 and 2025 will be shortened to 10 years.