Gov’t considering housing exchange system for public housing upgrades

The government is considering implementing a housing exchange system to allow residents to move into larger units as their families grow.

The Secretary for Transport and Public Works, Raymond Tam, announced this at the Legislative Assembly (AL) in response to inquiries from lawmakers Ella Lei and Zheng Anting.

In his response, Tam explained that the government is already developing the housing exchange system and studying how to implement it to allow residents living in one-bedroom public housing units to exchange them for two- or three-bedroom apartments in cases where their household size increases due to marriage or having children.

Tam noted that this is a short-term measure the government can take.

“In future policies, we will consider building more T2 and T3 units. But in the short term, what we can do to address the problem is to create this exchange system. This is what we can do as an immediate measure,” Tam remarked.

Among the lawmakers’ proposals was a call to revise the current application system for public housing acquisition and rental. However, Tam did not commit to such changes, stating that introducing significant modifications to the system could also require changes to the candidate scoring criteria.

Regarding lawmaker Ella Lei’s proposal to allow individual applicants to choose larger apartments during the application stage, Tam rejected the idea, stating that individual candidates are not the priority for public housing access.

He reiterated that priority is given to families with larger households and suggested maintaining the current mechanism, with potential enhancements through the new housing exchange system to be implemented later.

The Secretary also noted that the government has already adjusted its housing projects to include more one-bedroom units.

However, these accounted for only 20% of the total units offered in the 2019 and 2021 tenders, while approximately 80% were two- and three-bedroom units. Tam assured lawmakers, “In the future, most units offered in public housing tenders will continue to have two or more bedrooms.”

Ella Lei also asked Tam why so many applications were rejected in previous tenders. Tam said the primary reasons were “missing documents or applicants exceeding the established income ceilings.”

In his inquiry, lawmaker Zheng suggested that the government adjust the price of public housing acquisition units to reduce financial pressure on residents.

He argued that the current pricing is “too close to the private market,” which makes these units less attractive and contributes to their inefficiency.

In response, Tam said that the government “will take a cautious approach and always consider the population’s needs. We hope that public housing residents can have better living conditions, and we are studying ways to improve the policy. Regarding pricing, we will evaluate it based on changes in the real estate market. This is an evolving factor, and we will take a pragmatic approach to improvements.”

This was the first time the new government, led by Chief Executive Sam Hou Fai, visited the AL to respond to lawmakers’ concerns—a fact highlighted by some lawmakers who expressed hope for a shift in policy direction under the new administration.

All lawmakers who participated in the debate following the Q&A agreed that the government should revise the public housing application process to make it a permanent system.

They argued that this would provide continuous feedback on housing needs and called for a periodic review and update of the applicant list.