How Hong Kong’s housing crisis is fed by the small-house policy
The long history of the policy does not make it any less feudal and selfish, particularly when more than 120,000 households are struggling in inadequate housing
According to the Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen, sometimes famines happen not because there is not enough food, but because some people do not have the “entitlement” to enough food. Similarly, the irony in Hong Kong is that the housing crisis has arisen not because there is not enough land, but because many Hongkongers do not have the “entitlement” to decent living space. The small-house policy is a case in point (“Small-house policy is an unsustainable burden”, January 17).
As the Court of Appeal recently upheld building small houses via private treaty grants and land exchanges as constitutional, at least 900 hectares of government land will continue to be reserved for small-house development, not to mention how many more land resources will be zoned in a similar way endlessly. The court ruling is no doubt a victory for the Heung Yee Kuk, but a debacle for most Hong Kong citizens.
Even the Court of Appeal recognised that the policy is inherently discriminatory. In fact, it has become a means of profiteering, given the widespread illegal selling of small-house rights to developers. Its long history does not make it any less feudal and selfish, particularly when more than 120,000 households are struggling in inadequate housing.
04:11
Tiny 290sq ft temporary housing a welcome upgrade for some low-income Hong Kong families
Tiny 290sq ft temporary housing a welcome upgrade for some low-income Hong Kong families
Does the Heung Yee Kuk have any concept of public interest? No one would object to indigenous villagers building small houses on their own private land, but certainly not with government land that belongs to the whole society.
The court is not to be blamed because it mainly operates on legal reasoning. After all, it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that a law serves public interest, not the other way round.
Assuming the ruling is reviewed and upheld at the Court of Final Appeal, it would be justified for the government to seek an interpretation or amendment to the Basic Law by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, if this is what it takes to right the wrong of the small-house policy.
01:35
Hong Kong’s small-house policy: indigenous rights or unfair advantage?
Hong Kong’s small-house policy: indigenous rights or unfair advantage?
But of course, bureaucrats prefer taking the easy way out. Instead of taking the risks themselves, they would rather watch the whole of society suffer. The Heung Yee Kuk is useful in electoral politics, but subdivided flat residents are not.
Former US president Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that read, “The buck stops here.” Unfortunately, our government never thinks so.
