On Wednesday the city’s leader Donald Tsang said in his annual policy address that the government plans to provide more than 17,000 apartments between 2016 and 2020

The programme is aimed at families who earn too much to qualify for public rental housing but cannot afford to buy a home of their own.

The flats will cost between 1.5m Hong Kong dollars ($193,000; £124,000) to HK$2m in a bid to make them affordable for households with a monthly income of between HK$20,000 to HK$30,000, he said…

© Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Hong Kong, hong kong economy, housing, housing boom, housing policies, housing prices
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The park, which was planned to occupy more than 128 hectares in the city’s Nanchuan district, would take the shape of China and display sculptures of the predecessors of the Communist Party of China, imitations of former leaders’ homes and landmarks in China’s red culture and its revolutionary history, according to the Chongqing Red Classic Investment Co Ltd, the main investor of the project ….

“The project has been stopped by the municipal government because the authorities thought it was not feasible,” Li Jing, deputy director of the publicity department of Nanchuan district, told China Daily on Friday.

Li declined to give more details ….

On the Nanchuan district government’s website, a resident surnamed Liao posted a letter saying the money should be spent on more urgent needs, such as providing financial support for migrant workers or building more affordable houses.

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Post tags: amusement parks, chinese communist party, Chongqing, Disney, housing, migrant workers, Red Tourism
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Soaring real estate prices are driving China’s rich and poor further apart. So central planners are gambling on a complicated plan to build millions of low-cost housing units to bridge the gap. The government said it would break ground on 5.8 million units this year, with an additional 9.6 million dwellings to follow nationwide over the next two years.

In most cases, the government will guarantee developers a profit and donate the land, eliminating the biggest cost for builders. Projects will include cheap rentals and millions of new homes in areas deemed slums.

Applicants must prove that their income and assets qualify them as needy. Yang’s family, for example, could not earn more than $6,800 a year and hold more than $54,000 in assets. If they wanted to sell the property, they would have to wait five years and would be hit with a land fee if they sold at market value. They could avoid that penalty by selling to another low-income family at a reduced price.

The initiative is an important step for a government fearful of social instability and mindful there may be no bigger challenge than providing modern housing to more of China’s 1.3 billion citizens.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: housing, housing market, income gap, poverty
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In the summer of 2009, the air was heavy. Only the creaking of the fan could be heard.

The sour stench of urine mixed with the smell of soaked sweat, filling the air of the 40 to 50 square meter rectangular room. 60-year-old Old Deng leaned against a wall, staring out into space. Just three floors below was a street in Hong Kong’s Mong Kok area. Most here are old residences, neon lights, and a sea of sign boards. They bring back memories of scenes in Hong Kong cop and robber movies, where the good is mixed with the bad.

Inside the residence, against the wall, are 7 double-decked iron beds. In front of each bed is a wire lattice. It’s almost like a metal cage. At the moment, two men were napping inside the “cages.”

Old Deng coughed a few times, and spit. After, he turned and pulled the iron lattice, and then locked it. He had placed a shower gel and detergent inside the “cage,” in the divider. His was the cleanest bed. Others were grimy, some with even small syringes inside.

Old Deng was rail thin and stooped. He slowly strolled out.

“Cage homes” have been a difficult social problem for Hong Kong’s government for years. They are legally known as bedspace apartments. Most renters are the old and enfeebled, Hong Kong’s unemployed, lone independents. They have been called “cage people.” Those concerned about their livelihoods have strongly criticized government policies, and a legislative council member even moved an “iron cage” onto the street, in the hopes of attracting more attention.

Around ten people lived in Old Deng’s place, packed like sardines. Once, after a fire, the government required that two-levels be constructed. Currently, most have already lived here for twenty to thirty years.

“Before, one bed would be 200 kuai in rent per month,” Old Deng said. Every two months, the price would go up, increasing by twenty percent. Now, each month’s rent costs 1200 Hong Kong dollars.

Most “cage people” depend on government payouts. Comprehensive Social Security Assistance totals 2200 Hong Kong dollars; unemployment payment is 1830 HKD. Aside from this, there is also charity aid. Every weekday, a charitable organization provides him with dinner. They have already gotten used to this sort of life.

Hong Kong’s government departments do not simply remove the bedspace apartments. They go through legislative channels to ensure that they meet standards for fire control, hygiene, and building safety. In 1994, Hong Kong published the “Bedspace Apartments Ordinance” in order to improve and reduce the number of “cage homes.” According to records at Hong Kong’s Home Affairs Bureau, there were 30 licensed bedspace apartments and 910 beds. Last year, that number has already decreased to 21 apartments and 775 beds.

“Cage homes aren’t part of the Hong Kong government’s relief program. We’re only hear to check sanitation, to see if fire control meets standards,” explained the information officer for the Home Affairs Bureau.

The rent for Old Deng’s place should normally be 6000-7000 HKD (sic) per month. The landlord hardly ever shows up, and has hired a representative to collect the rent. All of the “cage people” told us: “Don’t take pictures, or else the landlord will get upset.”

After Old Deng left, the residence felt incredibly lonely. 80-year-old Luo Sheng sat by the doorway, complaining about his “bleak [situation],” and how he was lucky to have an older brother in Macau who would send him money whenever he came up a little short.

“I’m old already. One or two of us are renting a place together, and if something happens, no one will know. [But] these are my brothers in the ‘cage’; we look after one another,” said the elderly man. But onlookers might say there isn’t much of a brotherhood to speak among the ‘cage people.’ Bickering and fighting often erupt, and sometimes a person would get slapped in the face over eating someone else’s bowl of food.

Not long ago, due to narcotic use and drug concealment, one of the ‘cage people’ was taken away by police. About a half month later, he came back to the cage home.

In the dark of the night, these ‘cage people’ look like statues as they sit idly. The only sound is the creaking of the fan, and the television’s news report announcement.

For CNN, Eunice Yoon reports on another bedspace apartment complex (also with video):

The 19 occupants share two toilets. A small rubber hose attached to a leaky faucet is what they use to wash themselves. Social workers who monitor the apartments said the electricity is donated, so a few of them have TVs. One person on the upper deck has an aquarium.

One social workers said that because of the recession these homes are being occupied more frequently by those made jobless — people in their 30s and 40s. The social worker said none of the younger people wanted to speak on camera for fear their chances of finding work would be hurt.

Chung, 67, is now waiting for welfare to kick in and is on a long list for public housing. The government says it is doing its best to meet its citizens’ needs, but Chung says he has lost all hope. Economic recovery or not, he feels forgotten.

© Paulina Hartono for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: cage homes, housing
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To promote services for pensioners, earlier this year the country set the goal of promoting care services for the elderly in all urban communities by 2010. In rural areas, 80 percent of townships will have at least one welfare center for retired persons… [Currently,] Special welfare care centers are still in short supply around the country. The number of beds they offer could accommodate only about 1.16 percent of current elderly population.

To help accommodate this growing population, local governments have built seniors’ housing, such as this one in Zhejiang Province.

China has been celebrating “Seniors Day” since 1989.  China has also created a monthly “Centarian Allowance” for seniors over 100 years old.

Read also CDT’s past posts, such as China Expects Communities to Take More Care of Elderly People

(Image courtesy of www.photoeverywhere.co.uk)

© cschultz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: aging, Centarian Allowance, housing, senior citizens
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In the post-Olympic era, a wave of price cuts for real estate appeared to have swept across major cities in China, which earlier this year was still a property hotspot.

Property developers in Shenzhen, southern Guangdong province, were among the first to slash prices to boost the sluggish local real estate market.

The move, however, triggered a domino effect across the country, with developers in Hangzhou, Beijing and other large cities following suit.

© Liu Yong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: housing, real estate
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A Chinese scholar from one of China’s most prestigious universities claimed slums should be allowed to exist in China’s big cities to provide shelters for the urban poor.

“It is no shame for big cities to have such areas. On the contrary, Shenzhen and other cities should take initiatives to build cheap residential areas for low-income residents including migrant workers who want to stay in the cities where they work,” said Tsinghua University Professor Qin Hui.

“By building those areas, big cities could show more consideration for low-income residents, and provide them with more welfare,” Qin said in his speech at a public forum on urbanization in Shenzhen over the weekend.

Read also Rural migrant workers need housing by Zhang Ming’ai.

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Post tags: housing, migrant workers, Qin Hui
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National guidelines on economically affordable housing were released on Friday night along with new State measures on housing for low-income families, which come into effect on Saturday.

Economically affordable houses ought to be around 60 sq m per unit, said the guidelines jointly released by the Ministry of Construction, the National Development and Reform Commission, and five other ministries.

It said eligible purchasers will “have limited property rights”, and that the apartments can only be directly sold after five years. [Full Text]

© Liu Yong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: housing
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In Shanghai, the average new-apartment price has gone up from 8,818 yuan per square meter in August 2006 to 10,280 yuan this August. For a new college graduate like Zhang Qiang who came over to Shanghai for work from the Northeast, his 1,300 yuan/month internship salary doesn’t allow him to live in a nice spacious apartment.

Zhang does the math for the reporter: for a 80-square-meter apartment at a residential compound, called ‰∏≠Ëøú‰∏§ÊπæÂüé, it costs 4,000 yuan a month to rent, way too much for a newcomer to Shanghai. But it’s much more affordable to get a tiny space, say a 3-square-meter box, in a “renovated” apartment for 700 yuan/month. And with that kind of living, he still saves no money during his one-year internship period. Meals will cost him 350 yuan a month, transit 6 a day.

(...)
Read the rest of Shanghai Cracking Down on Group-Rentals – Guangzhou Daily (189 words)

© Michael Zhao for China Digital Times (CDT), 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: housing, Shanghai
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Ever wonder why most Chinese don’t have any concept of personal space? The answer to this riddle is hidden at home.

Take a peek at one of the numerous Longtangs (lane-houses) of the city where 60% of the Shanghainese once lived, and you’ll understand the local psyche.

The Brits and French originally designed these 3-story homes in the 1920s as single-family residences. Later, the Communist government turned them into beehives, packing numerous households into this small space that shared a single kitchen and bathroom. [Full Text]

© Gao Fei for China Digital Times (CDT), 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: housing, photos, Shanghai, slideshow
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