The Housing Bureau (IH) announced in a statement yesterday that it has provisionally accepted 5,076 applications out of the 6,562 submitted for its latest round of applications for purchasing subsidised home-ownership scheme (HOS) flats, which will provide 5,415 units in the Zone A land reclamation area.
The bureau has provisionally rejected the other 1,486 applications, after concluding that the respective applicants are ineligible to buy an HOS flat for different reasons.
The application period for the 5,415 HOS flats ran from September 27 last year to March 27 this year, during which the bureau received 6,562 applications.
The 5,415 HOS flats, the construction of which got off the ground earlier this year on five plots of B5, B7, B8, B11 and B12 in Zone A, comprise 1,657 one-bedroom units, 3,216 two-bedroom units and 542 three-bedroom units.
Yesterday’s announcement means that the number of provisionally accepted submissions in this HOS application round, aka 2023 HOS application round, is even smaller than the number of flats available.
After yesterday’s announcement of the provisional acceptance list, rejected applicants can now choose to appeal to the Housing Bureau against its decision, until November 28, after which the bureau will reassess the rejected applicants who have lodged an appeal, before deciding whether to accept them.
After the bureau completes its follow-up assessments, it will announce a final acceptance list.
The allocation of HOS flats is carried out on a points-based system, according to which, applicants will be ranked according to scores calculated based on various factors and variables.
The current allocation system means that if the number of finally accepted applicants is higher than the number of HOS flats available in an application round, only those with the highest scores on the ranking list will be able to buy an HOS flat.
If the number of finally accepted applicants in this application round is still smaller than 5,415, it will mean that all of them will be able to buy an HOS flat.
The previous time the government accepted applications for HOS flats was in 2021 – for 5,254 units on five plots of A1, A2, A3, A4 and A12 in Zone A.
In the 2021 HOS application round, the bureau received 11,707 applications, 9,796 of which were finally accepted.
The government launched a round of applications in 2019 for 3,011 HOS flats on three plots on Zone A, which drew around 30,000 applications.
The number of HOS flats on the three plots, B4, B9 and B10, was later raised to 3,017 because of a slightly revised design. Construction of the three HOS estates comprising the 3,017 flats was completed earlier this year. They are the first three completed HOS estates in Zone A.
Meanwhile, the Public Works Bureau (DSOP) said in a statement on Tuesday that the topping-out of the ongoing construction of the five HOS estates on the five plots of A1, A2, A3, A4 and A12 in Zone A, i.e., the 5,254 HOS flats provided in the 2021 application round, was completed earlier this year. Their construction got off the ground in early 2022. According to the DSOP website, one of them is now scheduled to be completed late next year, while the other four are slated to be completed in 2026.
This handout photo taken in September and downloaded from the Public Works Bureau’s (DSOP) website yesterday shows the pile foundation work of the HOS project on Plot B8 in Zone A.
