Even with city’s new plan to regulate subpar flats, landlords are not driven to improve their properties’ squalid conditions.
Even with city’s new plan to regulate subpar flats, landlords are simply not motivated to improve their properties’ squalid conditions.
The new rules, announced at Mr Lee’s annual policy address in mid-October, require landlords to ensure subdivided flats are at least 8 sq m – a floor space of two Ikea king-size beds – and have a toilet and a window. Mr Lee’s plan to tackle the city’s notorious low-quality-housing problem is both an attempt to fix Hong Kong’s housing and a response to Beijing’s order for Hong Kong to eradicate the issue by 2049.
More importantly, they fail to adequately address the key issue of landlords lacking a motivation to improve the squalid slum-like conditions of their rental properties – essentially violating their tenants’ right to a basic living standard. Issues like poor ventilation in cramped quarters, bad hygiene standards, a lack of building maintenance, and pestilence render long-term tenants more susceptible to a host of hazards, diseases and chronic illnesses, including mental disorders.Another substandard subdivided flat in Cheung Sha Wan, Hong Kong. While this one may meet the floor space requirement of 8 sq m, it does not have a toilet or a window.
Many elderly tenants say the government is simply counting on them gradually dying out and removing themselves from the rental market to fix the city’s deep-seated housing problem. He already counts himself lucky, as his unit – although so cramped that his door cannot open fully – comes equipped with a rickety old air-conditioner, casement windows that are perpetually shut to keep out rats and cockroaches, and a toilet two steps from his bed.“Of course I’d love to move to a place twice as big,” he said. “But it’d also be twice as expensive. I can’t afford it… It’s best if I’m no longer around by then.
Today, tenants sleep in rectangular coffin-like plywood cubicles the size of a single bed with few, if any, air vents, and store all their belongings there, secured by a tiny padlock on a small square door.
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