LCQ7: Flat size of subsidised sale housing
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Question:
The Government has, since early this year, included in the land sale conditions of residential sites a requirement on the minimum flat size of 26 square metres (i.e. around 280 square feet) in saleable area (the requirement), and will extend the requirement to all Government land sale, railway property development projects, projects of the Urban Renewal Authority, as well as development and redevelopment projects carried out by private developers. However, the requirement is not yet applicable to subsidised sale housing projects. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(1) whether it has plans to extend the requirement to new projects of subsidised sale housing such as the Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) and the Green Form Subsidised Home Ownership Scheme; if so, of the details; if not, the reasons for that;
(2) of the total number of subsidised sale housing flats under the Hong Kong Housing Authority (HA) which will be completed in the current and coming three financial years, and among such flats, the number and percentage of those with a flat size of less than 280 sq ft; and
(3) among the HOS flats under HA which will be completed in the current and coming three financial years, of the number of small units which are similar to those in Kai Yan Court, Kai Tak (i.e. flats of a size ranging from 186 to 189 sq ft)?
Reply:
President,
The consolidated reply to the question raised by the Hon Leung Man-kwong is as follows:
In order to cater for families of different household sizes, the Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) flats constructed by the Hong Kong Housing Authority (HA) are built with different sizes, with the saleable area (SA) of the flats ranging from about 270 square feet to 450 sq ft. The HA will also consider designing flats with smaller or larger sizes in order to maximise the site potential, having regard to the environmental factors of individual projects, such as the location and topography.
Based on the forecast as at March 2022, the total production of HA's HOS flats for the four-year financial period from 2022/23 to 2025/26 is about 24 500 flats, of which most of the flats are Type B flats (for two to three persons), Type C flats (for three to four persons) and Type D flats (for four to five persons). There are also about 350 Type A flats (for one to two persons), accounting for around one per cent of the total production. As these flats are still being designed or under construction, the SA is yet to be finalised. However, it is expected that the SA of the Type A flats mentioned above would be smaller than 280 sq ft. These include 320 flats at Kai Yan Court (with SA of about 186 to 189 sq ft) and 30 flats with similar SA in another development to be completed later within the same district.
As regards the Green Form Subsidised Home Ownership Scheme (GSH), the HA has yet to decide which public rental housing projects will be used for sale as GSH in the coming years. As such, the total number and percentage of flats with SA less than 280 sq ft or ranging between 186 and 189 sq ft are not yet available.
Ends/Wednesday, July 13, 2022
Issued at HKT 12:58
Issued at HKT 12:58
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