The Housing Bureau (IH) announced yesterday that it has received 11,707 applications in its latest round of applications for 5,254 subsidised home-ownership scheme (HOS) flats to be built on the Zone A land reclamation area, 9,667 of which have been accepted while the remainder have been rejected.
The application period started in July last year and ended in late November.
The 5,254 HOS flats, which will be built on five plots on Zone A, comprise 242 one-bedroom units, 4,478 two-bedroom units and 534 three-bedroom units.
The latest around of applications is the first one carried out in line with the amended HOS law, which took effect in 2020.
According to the current version of the law, the allocation of HOS flats is carried out based on a points-based system, whereas under the previous version HOS flats were allocated through a lucky draw process but with priority given to family applicants (those with senior citizens in particular) over individual applicants.
Under the previous version of the law, HOS units could be sold on the private market after the owners had owned them for a certain number of years, while according to the current version, HOS unit owners can only sell their flats back to the Housing Bureau.
The previous time the government accepted applications for HOS flats was in 2019 – for 3,011 units on three plots on Zone A.
In the previous application round in 2019, the government received around 30,000 applications. In the application round in 2013 for 1,900 HOS flats in Seac Pai Van public housing estate in Coloane, the government received around 40,000 applications.
