AL Plenary | New round of social housing applications in Q4

A  new round of applications for Macau’s social housing program will open in the fourth quarter.

The Secretary for Transport and Public Works, Raimundo do Rosário, said during yesterday’s plenary meeting at the Legislative Assembly (AL) that the government will consider implementing a permanent application mechanism for public housing.

Local residents can currently only apply for public housing units when the government opens applications. The last application window was in 2013.

Lawmakers’ arguments at the meeting focused on the need for a permanent mechanism.

Ma Chi Seng questioned Rosário about the difficulty of establishing such a mechanism, in addition to any other issues that might arise during the process of building public housing.

Rosário said that the current law on public housing does not permit such a mechanism, but that his department will conduct a review. He added that once the Housing Bureau completes work on the law, it will be forwarded to the AL for further discussion. 

Lawmakers said that residents believe the absence of application tenders for the past four years indicates that the government is unaware of public housing needs. 

Ho Ion Seng asked Rosário whether the government will look into the local supply and demand of public housing, adding that developing sufficient public housing would involve long-term plans.

Mak Soi Kun seconded Ho’s request for additional research, pointing out that while no residents bought public houses before the 1999 handover, times have changed.

“Both the population and economy are growing, and people are all going out to ‘look for food’ [because of] the Belt and Road policy,” said Mak. To “look for food” is a Cantonese expression for “finding work.”

He said the public housing supply is decided by the market, and that the government can only implement its policy in a scientific manner if it carries out the relevant studies.

In response, Rosário told Mak that the government has already selected a company to conduct research on public housing demand, the results of which will be announced in September.

Melinda Chan also spoke out. “Without applications, how can you make plans? If you do not enforce regular applications, you will never know how many people will apply for houses, and you will never know what type of apartments you will have.”

When this happens, Chan said, the government “cannot get data [and will end up] estimating data randomly, which yields the wrong results.”

She remarked that the government will waste resources if it builds public housing without taking market needs into consideration.

Rosário affirmed that his departments have plans regarding the market’s demands, claiming that the government had referred to the latest available data when planning new apartments to build.

Lau Veng Seng suggested that Rosário expand the Housing Bureau and hire more human resources personnel.

“If we need [too] many people, we will not do it,” responded Rosário, adding that the Housing Bureau will not receive an allocation of new human resources staff any time soon. There are now 3,400 people working across the bureau’s departments.

Chui Sai Peng asked whether the government would prioritize elderly applicants living alone when assigning lodgings.

According to Rosário, the government has consulted all sectors regarding the city’s public housing laws since a partial amendment in 2015.

The government is reviewing Macau’s public housing laws and will submit draft amendments to the AL this year.