Book Description

This dissertation, "An Evaluation of Tenant Purchase Scheme (TPS): the Right Model Towards Sustainable Housing in Hong Kong Through Privatization?" by 施宏楚, Wang-cho, James, Sze, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of thesis entitled "An evaluation of Tenant Purchase Scheme (TPS): The right model towards sustainable housing in Hong Kong through privatization?" Submitted by James SZE Wang-cho (University No. 1990156916) for the degree of Master of Science (Interdisciplinary Design and Management) at The University of Hong Kong in August 2005. Abstract Hong Kong is well-known as a bastion of free market, private enterprise and limited Government, in its land and housing policies. Being the largest land owner and biggest housing unit supplier in the past several decades, the Hong Kong Government is playing an important role towards sustainable housing development. Although the Government always claimed that it pursues a positive non-intervention policy, inevitably it promotes housing policies from time to time, such as the Tenant Purchasing Scheme (TPS), which might have drastic influences on the housing development and may affect the sustainability of Hong Kong society as a whole. In his first policy address, the Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa made a bold attempt in changing the housing policy to promote home ownership for the well being of the people and maintain the social stability. One of the policies announced following his speech is the Tenant Purchasing Scheme (TPS). The scheme offers the sitting tenants the opportunity to buy their flats at 12% of the estimated full market value. The property market had slumped after the release of the related policy. If the TPS promoted by the Government have played an important role in reducing the existing housing unit transactions and home prices, the TPS can be demonstrated to lead to erosion of wealth and economic inefficiency in the short-term situation. However, the TPS not necessarily failed to fulfill the criteria of sustainable housing development in a long-term situation, namely social, cultural, economic and environmental sustainability. Should this can be proven, the TPS can be considered as a right model to attain sustainable housing development through privatization of the public housing in Hong Kong. Singapore has implemented a similar TPS Scheme for more than 40 years and it is reported that the scheme has succeeded in achieving a sustainable community. Due to their similarity in many aspects as cities, Singaporean's approach towards privatization of public housing will be explored and compared to test if TPS is an appropriate model towards sustainable housing development. Being one of the major models of privatizing the public rental housing, if the relative success and failures of Hong Kong's TPS implementation, both in its content and application, can be demonstrated and measured, its future potential effectiveness in achievable a sustained housing development can also be demonstrated. DOI: 10.5353/th_b3679029 Subjects: Public housing - China - Hong Kong