The average waiting time for a Hong Kong public rental flat dropped to 5.5 years in the second quarter of this year, down from the 5.7 years recorded from January to March.
The latest figures released by the Housing Authority on Monday showed the queuing time for general applicants, meaning families and elderly households, between April and June decreased by more than two months between the first and second quarters.
“In the second quarter of 2024, about 7,000 general applicants were housed [in] public rental housing, the largest number of flats allocated since the third quarter of 2022,” the authority said.
The average waiting time for a public rental flat has not fallen under five years since 2018 and peaked two years ago in March at 6.1 years.
Authorities have said they aim to cut the waiting period for permanent and temporary public rental homes to 4.5 years by the 2026-27 financial year through a raft of housing initiatives.
According to the figures, elderly one-person households accounted for 900 of the about 7,000 general applicants in the second quarter.
To join the queue of elderly one-person households, residents must be aged 58 at the time of applying and reach 60 years old when they are allocated a public rental flat.
The average waiting time for elderly one-person households reached 3.7 years, a slight drop from the 3.8 years recorded three months ago.
The city government earlier identified sufficient land to build 413,000 public flats in the coming 10 years, but two-third of the supply will be completed in the latter half of the decade.
According to the government’s five-year forecast, 146,800 public homes will be built in total, including 32,500 flats to be completed in the current financial year ending next March.
The annual production will peak at financial year 2027-28 with 34,100 flats, while the supply ranges between 22,400 to 29,500 in the remaining three years.
Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu pledged to cut the public rental housing waiting time as he rolled out the “light public housing” scheme in his first policy address in 2022.
The scheme is designed to create 30,000 government-built temporary homes in stages by 2027-28 for families who have been on the waiting list for a permanent public rental flat for at least three years.
He hoped the scheme could cut the waiting time for permanent and temporary public rental homes to 4.5 years by 2026-27.
