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Letters | How Hong Kong’s electoral overhaul will solve the housing crisis

  • The pro-Beijing camp, stacked with vested interests, was never serious about solving the housing problem
  • The pro-democracy camp was all criticism and no solutions

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An aerial view of Hong Kong’s residential buildings in Sham Shui Po. Photo: Getty Images
Beijing coming down hard for Hong Kong to resolve the housing crisis comes to me as great news. For too long, politicians on both ends of the spectrum dragged their feet on the issue.
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The apparently pro-Beijing camp – where many are among the vested interests, such as property tycoons and developers – never intended for property prices to fall and become affordable.

Consultations, expert studies and think tank research went on and on, but arrived at no real solutions. Free-market ideology, the US dollar peg, low interest rates and land approval were all just excuses.

The pro-democracy camp also contributed to our housing crisis. They were always critical: blocking and objecting to government initiatives while citing reasons such as environmental protection; blaming the mainland and mainlanders (specifically, the one-way permit scheme that lets in 150 mainland citizens per day); or complaining that they weren’t consulted.

Enough is enough. Beijing was once patient, allowing Hong Kong autonomy to solve our own problems; it did not want to invite criticism that the central government was overreaching its authority. But, just as it enacted Article 23 for Hong Kong when we failed to deliver in the 23 years since the handover, the central government should directly resolve Hong Kong’s housing crisis.

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