A 55-year-old construction worker throws pieces of paper out of his 12th floor apartment into a public area. A clear case of littering. In fact, he is arrested and charged with…
…two counts of “doing with a seditious intention an act or acts that had a seditious intention”…
Because of what was written on the paper.
Officials discuss provision for public space at the Northern Metropolis in the Legislative Council…
The debate also centred on whether room existed for further increases in the minimum size requirement for private and public housing units in general.
[Secretary for Development Bernadette] Linn said officials needed to take into account a number of factors for consideration.
“We need to consider the cost and return for developers. We also need to consider that society has diverse needs, people from all walks of life have different requirements of flat size, as well as the affordability of potential buyers,” she said.
The development chief added there might be a knock-on effect on the property market whenever the administration decides to lay down new indicators on minimum size requirements for flats, noting such an impact must be gauged carefully.
This could mean: we must ensure property tycoons make lots of money; we will make sure the housing is so expensive most people can afford only a shoe-box; and we can’t have bigger affordable apartments because it might hurt the value of larger units that our friends have already bought.
Or it might mean something else. Not sure.
Some weekend reading: how Uyghur culture becomes ‘extremism’, from Bitter Winter.
As an aside. How much rent do ministers with official residences pay in rent and who pays the utility bills?
@Curious
$0 as they have a housing allowance.
Curious: Not sure what level you are asking about, but all civil servants used to pay 7.5% of their salary as rent for government provided accommodations. They were also given a tersely written warning that they must return the accommodation in its original state upon moving out. The only exception was that air conditioning 3 or 2004units were allowed to be left behind. My understanding is that this applied to everyone except perhaps the CE, CS, FS and maybe a few others that lived in historically designated residences.
I guess this applies to anyone hired by the government before 2003 or 2004, which probably includes most “government ministers.” Housing allowances were only given to civil servants after 2003 or 2004.
@A poor man
Indeed. But I don’t think civil service rules apply to principal officials which is what I believe @Curious was asking about since he used the word ministers which is what principal officials are.
In fairness to developers, they have to pay absurd amounts of money to the Government to change agricultural land into residential land. The money is paid upfront, then you have to construct the building so you have to have a good idea as to what housing prices will be four years into the future. So they factor in the risk.
The risk could easily be mitigated by the Government deciding to wave the upfront fee and simply demand X% of the revenues of the sale of the project. (20%? 25%? they can figure it out). That method would dramatically reduce the risk to developers, incentivizing them to build lots more housing much more quickly rather than “negotiating” for years with the Lands Department about what a “fair” land premium should be paid.
Put a majority of the upside and downside benefits and risks on the Government, and you’d see developers dramatically increasing their production of flats.