Lucy Kwan

Opinion | Three unconventional ways for Hong Kong to tackle its housing crisis in the near term

Proposals to repurpose quarantine centres and pockets of government land, and build a multistorey youth hostel, might seem unorthodox, but the city needs short-term solutions

Infrastructure-heavy projects such as the Northern Metropolis or Lantau Tomorrow Vision will not start to yield housing solutions for a decade or more

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The Kai Tak Community Isolation Facility in Hong Kong on June 28. As the Covid-19 pandemic wanes, isolation facilities such as the ones in Kai Tak and Penny’s Bay could be relocated or repurposed to help ease the city’s housing shortages. Photo: Bloomberg

Lucy Kwan

Published: 10:15am, 15 Jul 2022

In response to the call by Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu to resolve Hong Kong’s perennial housing issues, we at the Tanner Hill Workshop have some proposals for near-term solutions. Hopefully they can help address the shortcomings in the current government housing supply plan for the next 10 years.

Our approach focuses on short timelines and being budget-conscious. As such, we have sought to identify underutilised urban government land and existing resources, optimised usage while favouring dual use where appropriate and conducted preliminary technical and economic feasibility studies, taking access to public utilities and construction complexity into consideration.

Our team – which includes an architect, a surveyor, a statistician and hospitality executives, among other professionals – has examined three easily deployable sites.

First, as the Covid-19 pandemic wanes and demand for quarantine centres drops, the recently completed isolation centre at the old Kai Tak runway could immediately be made available. Its 3,000 rooms could serve as decanting sites for people who live in subdivided flats and are affected by urban renewal projects, such as the one in nearby Kowloon City.

These rooms, which are fitted with sanitary and cooking facilities, should be put into active use. They could be used as transitional housing before being vacated when Kai Tak is turned into a bustling business and tourism hub once the planned facilities and infrastructure are in place.

Second, the land loop of about 2.5 hectares near the Eastern Harbour Tunnel and just opposite the Taikoo Place business hub is currently home to an abandoned vehicle yard, a locked-up community garden and more. This land could be put to use with better utilisation and organisation.