John Lee's Housing Strategy Is Safe: Legislator

The deputy chairman of Legco's housing panel, Leung Man-kwong, on Tuesday described Chief Executive John Lee's housing strategy as safe, saying it's crucial not to let public housing waiting times slip.

Lee has said that one of his targets is to reduce the average queuing time for a public flat – currently at around 6.1 years – or at least not allow the situation to deteriorate.

On an RTHK programme, Leung said it would take a lot of effort to reduce the queue during Lee's five-year term, and keeping the waiting time at the current level is more feasible.

"If we can really keep the waiting time at 6.1 years and not let it increase further, at least in the coming two to three years, there's a chance we can reduce the waiting time later," Leung said.

"I don't think we can let the situation deteriorate. We all understand to save a person we first need to stop the bleeding. If we don't act to stop the increase in waiting times, it will be very difficult to catch up later. Therefore, I think this is a safe approach," he continued.

Leung said people will know if the CE can come up with something new when he delivers a report on housing 100 days after taking office.

The legislator said he hopes to see various government departments enhancing coordination to shorten the time needed to build public housing in order to increase the supply, for example by making use of brownfield and green belt sites and streamlining procedures.