CY Leung must solve housing crisis

When Leung Chun-ying was elected the chief executive in March 2012, hopes were high that he could deliver a better housing blueprint. Since then, he has tweaked land sale policies, combatted speculative activity, reformed subsidised housing schemes and increased home production targets. There is certainly no shortage of initiatives, but their efficacy is another matter. The queue for public housing is just as long, and home ownership remains as distant a goal for many. For this Leung is not fully to blame. Constrained by an acute shortage of land, he cannot deliver results overnight. The conundrum is further deepened by the lack of community consensus on the strategy. Even though his team has managed to table some out-of-the-box ideas, they were swiftly shot down by environmentalists, district councillors and lawmakers.

With his third policy address due in six weeks, the chief executive has been bombarded with a plethora of ideas on housing. They range from releasing part of the city's green zones for affordable housing to building more hostel-style accommodation for young people. The government is also reportedly considering building more flats in suburbs for those who are caught between public rental housing and the subsidised Home Ownership Scheme. Innovative as they sound, the proposals would not be feasible without land. The sad reality is that while people are all for building more affordable units, they are less forthcoming when it comes to sensitive proposals, such as giving up some green areas or reclamation for housing projects.

There is no question of striking the right balance between the environment and development. But given the overriding need to develop more housing, sometimes there is no alternative but to make some difficult decisions. Our new towns like Tuen Mun, Sha Tin and Tseung Kwan O were all developed at the expense of the environment in the past few decades. Currently, they are home to hundreds of thousands of people. Had we placed the environment above development, a sizeable population would have been homeless today.

The Occupy protests show public discontent has been rising, partly because people see no hope in the future. Leung should redouble efforts in alleviating their grievances. This can be done by providing more affordable housing. To achieve the target, some tough choices have to be made.