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In response to media enquiries on a claim filed with the Small Claims Tribunal today (January 13), a spokesman for the Housing Department issued the following statement:
We note that an applicant has filed a claim against the Housing Department (HD)/Hong Kong Housing Authority (HA) for not being housed in a public rental housing (PRH) flat within three years, quoting figures from the Director of Audit's Report on allocation and utilisation of PRH flats that there were 12 471 unoccupied PRH flats as at March last year, and challenged that there was maladministration of the HD/HA. We are of the view that there is no justification for the claim.
It is the Government's policy objective to provide PRH to low-income families who cannot afford private rental accommodation. Towards this end, the HA maintains a Waiting List (WL) of PRH applicants. The HA's target is to maintain the Average Waiting Time (AWT) at around three years for general applicants, i.e. family and elderly applicants. The AWT target of around three years is not applicable to non-elderly one-person applicants under the Quota and Points System.
The HA has in place a consistent and fair mechanism to derive the AWT. Under the established methodology, waiting time refers to the time taken between registration on the WL and first flat offer, excluding any frozen period during the application period (e.g. when the applicant has not yet fulfilled the residence requirement; the applicant has requested to put his/her application on hold pending arrival of family members for family reunion; the applicant is imprisoned, etc). The AWT for general applicants refers to the average of the waiting time for general applicants housed to PRH in the past 12 months. This established methodology forms the basis for formulating and maintaining the target of keeping the AWT for general applicants at around three years.
Although the HA's target is to maintain the AWT for general applicants at around three years, the actual time it takes for individual applicants to be housed in PRH depends on many different factors and individual choices, including the family circumstances of applicants, their district choices and whether to accept the first offer or wait for the next offer. Moreover, the availability of PRH flats of different sizes (including newly completed and recovered flats) varies from district to district, while the demand for PRH flats in each district also changes from time to time. Therefore, the HA cannot guarantee, and has never guaranteed, that all general applicants can be housed in PRH within three years.
As regards the 12 471 unoccupied PRH flats mentioned in the Director of Audit's Report, they included 4 370 "unlettable flats", 3 964 "flats under offer", and 4 137 "lettable vacant flats". The
4 370 "unlettable flats" are reserved for specific purposes, such as flats affected by clearance, Housing for Senior Citizens Type 1 flats and Converted One-person flats pending conversion, and thus cannot be used to satisfy housing demand; for the 3 964 "flats under offer", they are being offered to applicants and are expected to be taken up in the near future. Therefore, these two types of flats should not be regarded as vacant PRH units. As regards the 4 137 "lettable vacant flats", they change from time to time and thus the vacancy figures can only indicate the vacancy situation at a particular point in time. The above was clearly explained to the Public Accounts Committee during the hearing on the Director of Audit's report, and it has nothing to do with maladministration of the HD/HA.
Ends/Monday, January 13, 2014
Issued at HKT 19:30
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