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Following is a question by the Hon Paul Tse and a written reply by the Acting Secretary for Transport and Housing, Mr Yau Shing-mu, in the Legislative Council today (April 15):
Question:
The Government announced in January this year that it would launch the Green Form Home Ownership Pilot Scheme (GFHOPS). It has been reported that under the scheme, sitting public rental housing (PRH) tenants and PRH applicants who have passed the detailed vetting and are due for flat allocation (Green Form applicants) may apply for the purchase of newly built PRH flats offered at half of the market price, and that the Anderson Road public housing development (the Anderson Road development) and So Uk Estate redevelopment will be the first two pilot projects. In the past two months, quite a number of members of the public enquired with me about the details of GFHOPS. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(1) when PRH flats under the first phase of GFHOPS will be available for sale, and when Green Form applicants may purchase the newly built PRH flats;
(2) of the respective numbers of PRH flats to be provided for purchase by Green Form applicants under the Anderson Road development and the So Uk Estate redevelopment projects;
(3) of the resale restrictions that the authorities will impose on the PRH flats to be sold under GFHOPS in order to avoid fueling speculations in the property market; and
(4) in view of the continuously surging prices of small residential flats, whether the authorities have assessed if the flats to be sold at half of the market price under GFHOPS will turn out to be purchased only by well-off PRH tenants who are paying 1.5 times rent, double rent or market rent (well-off tenants) because such flats are not affordable to Green Form applicants in general, and the scheme will, in effect, subsidise well-off tenants to replace their residential properties by public money?
Reply:
President,
The Long Term Housing Strategy (LTHS) promulgated by the Government in December last year states that the Government will consider how to further expand the forms of subsidised home ownership in the context of reinforcing the housing ladder and promoting social mobility. During the public consultation on LTHS, there were suggestions from public rental housing (PRH) tenants and members of District Councils to relaunch the Tenants Purchase Scheme (TPS) to facilitate PRH tenants to achieve home ownership. However, in light of the management problems arising from the co-existence of owners and tenants in TPS estates, the Hong Kong Housing Authority (HA) has decided not to launch TPS outside the existing 39 TPS estates. Nevertheless, there are still suggestions in society that subsidised sale flats with prices lower than that of Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) could be provided to PRH tenants.
In his 2015 Policy Address, the Chief Executive proposed to HA that suitable flats should be identified among its PRH developments under construction for sale to eligible Green Form (GF) applicants, mainly PRH tenants, in the form of a pilot scheme, with prices set at a level lower than those of HOS. Generally referred to as the "Green Form Subsidised Home Ownership Pilot Scheme" at present (or "GSH" in short), this proposal is a response to the LTHS's general direction of expanding the forms of subsidised home ownership and further reinforcing the housing ladder. Apart from helping GF applicants achieve home ownership, based on the "one-for-one" concept, the scheme will release existing PRH flats as a result for allocation to families awaiting PRH allocation.
The Strategic Planning Committee of HA has discussed the guiding principles for GSH and supported the introduction of the pilot scheme. Based on the guiding principles, the Housing Department is now working on the implementation details, including eligibility criteria, price setting mechanism, resale arrangements, site selection principle, etc. The proposed implementation details, once mapped out, will be submitted to the Subsidised Housing Committee (SHC) of HA for consideration. Since SHC has not yet discussed the implementation details of GSH, we are unable to provide the required details at this stage. It is also too early to discuss the site for GSH.
GF applicants (mainly PRH sitting tenants and PRH applicants who have passed the detailed eligibility vetting and are due for flat allocation in about a year's time) have always been allowed to apply for HOS. As seen from the experience of the sale of surplus HOS flats from 2007 to 2013, among the some 17 800 flats sold, about half of them were bought by GF applicants. Over 80 per cent of these GF applicants were not PRH tenants paying additional rent; while about 4 per cent of GF purchasers were PRH applicants who had passed the detailed eligibility vetting and were due for flat allocation in about a year's time. Although SHC has not yet discussed the pricing of GSH flats, we believe that the affordability of GF applicants, the financial capability of HA and equity across subsidised sale flat schemes will be taken into consideration.
Ends/Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Issued at HKT 12:35
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