Waiting Time For Public Housing Flats Decreases From Six Years to 5.6

Local news outlet RTHK reported in an article yesterday that the Housing Authority (HA) said that the average waiting time for public housing apartments has decreased from six years to 5.6 years, based off information dated at the end of September

Meanwhile, the waiting time for individual elderly applicants has dropped from 4.1 years to 3.9 years. The HA cites the allocation of over 10,000 public housing apartments in the third quarter of 2022.

Deputy director of the Society for Community Organisation, Sze Lai-shan, said that while this is an improvement, it is not the solution.

“I have been looking forward to the decrease of waiting time. It’s good for people, and that means the supply of public housing is going faster. But of course, it’s still not good [enough], because 5.6 years is still very long time. I think ideally it should be three years,” Sze was quoted as saying.

RTHK also spoke to the Federation of Public Housing Estates, who welcomed the good news, but commented that the average wait is unlikely to decrease by a large margin given the small number of new public housing units.

The group added that the selection of new sites and development timetables involved in building new housing units should be divulged in more detail.

Chief Executive John Lee addressed the public and lawmakers in his October Policy Address, where he outlined the target for the public housing wait is 4.5 years in four years.