Hong Kong is in a long race to solve its housing woes, as calls mount for the construction of public housing units to be stepped up. Gu Mengyan reports from Hong Kong.

The scramble by Hong Kong residents to get vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to qualify for a lucky draw with a top prize of a HK$10 million (US$1.3 million) luxury apartment highlights the severity of the city's housing problems and the long waiting time for public housing.

Hong Kong families, on average, had to wait for 5.8 years for a public housing unit in the first quarter of this year — the longest since 1999 — according to the Hong Kong Housing Authority's latest statistics, released in mid-May.

The financial hub's property tycoons rose to the occasion and offered a host of incentives for vaccinated residents, including lucky draws that could enable them to win a luxury apartment, in response to Hong Kong authorities' call to boost the local vaccination rate.

The Housing Authority said that only 11,261 public housing apartments were built in 2020 — a nine-year low. The figure still fell short of the government's estimate in September that 13,000 apartments would be completed, indicating that those in the line for public housing may have to wait even longer.

"I now expect the average waiting period to exceed six years. I also doubt the government's projections for the number of public housing flats to be built in future. It should explain the disparity and try every means to speed up construction," said Wilson Or Chong-shing, a lawmaker from the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong.

Grassroots families on the waiting list are among the hardest hit as many of them have been languishing in subdivided apartments of poor hygiene, he said.

"The top priority now is to regulate subdivided housing through legislation and subsidize disadvantaged households. The government should also step up building 15,000 transitional flats as planned for these families."

The government said a draft bill on tenancy control of subdivided units will be discussed at the Legislative Council on Wednesday, and that the government has secured the land to construct the 15,000 units; more than half of the land was offered by private developers.

Special Administrative Region authorities announced a three-year pilot program on June 17 that offers cash subsidies to public-housing applicants who have been on the waiting list for three years or above. Up to HK$3,900 will be given to eligible applicants who are not living in public housing apartments and are not receiving Comprehensive Social Security Assistance, depending on the size of the family. More than 90,000 families are expected to benefit from the program.

Ryan Ip Man-ki, head of land and housing research at Our Hong Kong Foundation, said that besides acute land shortage, complex red tape has hindered the construction of public housing estates, suggesting that a full disclosure of the timeline and progress of housing projects should be made for the public to track and monitor them.

He advised authorities to reintroduce a program that would allow private developers to take part in public housing construction and enhance efficiency.

Secretary for Development Michael Wong Wai-lun had earlier said it will now take at least 10 years — from consultations to construction — to build a public housing estate on undeveloped land, compared with more than 15 years in the past.