Drawing ballots for sale of new Home Ownership Scheme flats

Today, ballots were drawn by the Housing Authority to determine applicants' order of selection for the sale of a new batch of 2 160 Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) flats. This is the first time in 12 years that brand-new HOS flats have been put on the market.

The HOS has enabled quite a number of families, including young families, to realise their home ownership dreams. Fully aware of the wish of our people, especially the young ones, to own their homes, the Government is ready to supply HOS flats.  The key is the availability of land. Three years ago, I emphasised in my Manifesto the "timely provision of land resources of an appropriate scale" and "more strategic and long-range planning in land use". There can be no housing without land.

Given the present financial strength of the Government, we are fully capable of providing more HOS flats for our people as long as we have land. However, our attempts in land planning have frequently met with strong resistance. I hope that those people who object to our land planning proposals can think of the tens of thousands of applicants for the latest batch of HOS flats, and stop further delaying the supply of land and thus the realisation of the home ownership dreams of so many people.

March 26, 2015