It has been widely recognized that there is urgent need to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emission for mitigation of climate change. The mitigation strategies are highly associated with planning and design that assist to tackle CO2 emissions embodied in housing development. This research conducts evaluation of planning and design of public housing in Hong Kong as it affects the production of CO2 has shown a quite unique situation in comparison with other cities because of a combination of various aspects. Firstly, the reduction in energy consumption of transportation by lower transportation demand that directly cutbacks the fossil fuel consumption as well as reduces the emission of CO2. Dramatic change of location-based mobility patterns due to the failure of selfcontained new town development that highly impacts the daily trip of low-income people, who live in public housing that locate distant from the urban area and even the railway station. Cross-district to work or conduct their activities by multiple trips generate more CO2 emission. Secondly, the reduction of carbon dioxide increases the importance of carbon absorption by greening and CO2 diminution by recycling. As Hong Kong is a compact city, planning and design of housing face to the challenges of conserve lands for greenery and reserve space for recycling facilities in estate. Thirdly, enhancing low-carbon living through the reduction of electricity consumption. High-rise and high-density housing development is unique in Hong Kong, which has no doubt amplified the electricity consumption. While residents’ behavioral study shows that convenient, privacy, and practicability are the driven consideration factors. This study reveals the practicing planning and design of public housing in Hong Kong positively contribute to reduce CO2 emission; while less attention has been paid to the jobs-housing balance and non-motorized transportation developments. This study fills a gap of variations between theoretical and practical differences context by suggesting integrate residents’ perspectives and administrative approach in fostering low-carbon development in compact urban context. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

The history of public housing in Macau started in 1928. Yet, the performance level of the public housing sector is relatively lower compared to the nearby cities, whereas their public housing sectors were commenced at a later stage. The return of sovereignty of Macau in 1999 becomes the major turning point of the city. Since then, the economic landscape of the city has dramatically changed by the liberalization of the gaming industry in 2002. The vibrant economy has directly led to an upsurge of the real estate market, resulting an unaffordable private housing market. In addition, the city has also initiated the demand of more public housing by the local residents. With the sudden increase in the demand of more public housing units, the government has decided to launch the “19,000 Public Housing Units” Programme. With this phenomenon recently occurred in Macau, it will be worth visiting the current performance level of the public housing sector in Macau; aiming to find out if the public housing sector has met the expectations of different stakeholders, with quantity, quality and affordability as the assessment criteria. Negative results have been shown while assessing the criteria of quantity and quality and a positive result has been reflected for affordability. After knowing the weaknesses of the public housing sector, it will be worth looking into the possible factors influencing its performance with land supply and urban planning as the critical components. Recommendations to improve the performance of the public housing sector through better land and planning policies have been established to conclude this dissertation. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

This thesis explores the impact of housing rights jurisprudence on Chinese legal and policy frameworks in the housing sector, examines the key related issues, and assesses whether current practices are in line with international best practice. The thesis considers three major questions, viz. 1 What are housing rights? 2 What is the significance of housing rights in the Chinese context? 3 Given the features and nature of housing rights, and China’s transitional societal background, how could housing rights be implemented? By looking at the jurisprudence and jurisprudential development of housing rights in international law and related humanitarian jurisprudence, this thesis proposes a three-layer framework of housing rights, which encompasses property and resource dimensions. While the property dimension requires the state to refrain from interfering in property interest in housing, the resource dimension establishes a set of principles for directing governmental duties in utilizing and redistributing resources. The governments should enable equal and equitable access to housing and housing-related resources, and ensure housing development is a human-centered, sustainability-oriented process. China is a transitional society, where the Constitution shows a trend towards strengthening property rights protection, but institutional constraints on property rights remain. There are also transformative schemes in the housing sector that take the form of land reform and public housing programs. An overview of the housing regime in China identifies three primary limitations: an incoherent legal framework of Chinese takings law related to the property dimension of housing rights; problems with equal and equitable access to land resource as reflected by the urban-rural divide in the land tenure system; and the lack of a sustainability vision in public housing development. It is, therefore, argued that implementing housing rights involves enshrining values and principles related to housing rights in the domestic constitution. This can take the form of reinterpreting the Chinese constitutional property according to the three-layer framework of housing rights. Such a reinterpretation sheds further light on how to resolve the key issues in the current housing regime. This study concludes that housing rights require Chinese constitutional property to strike a balance between protecting existing property-holdings and the transformative schemes in the housing sector. For the property dimension of Chinese constitutional property, housing rights help to construct a coherent jurisprudence for Chinese takings law. The resource dimension of housing rights serves as an assessment tool for the policy framework to guide both the utilization and redistribution of land resources and the development of public housing programs. This facilitates the legal and policy framework in the housing sector to be informed by humanitarian jurisprudence and be in line with international best practice. The pioneering nature of this thesis lies in its exploration of humanitarian jurisprudence which is new to Chinese constitutional reasoning, and the extension of jurisprudential discussion of housing rights to public policy formulation. It is also innovative in proposing the three-layer framework of housing rights. Some of the findings from the discussion of international jurisprudence may be extended not only to the Chinese setting but also to other transitional economies which face similar housing issues and concerns in their policy-making. / published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Social stigma on public housing is a deep-rooted and unsolvable problem, places with large-scale public housing are perceived as concentration of unemployment and crimes in which outsiders are reluctant to visit those ghettos. Some empirical researches endeavored to argue social stigma on public housing can be abated by diversifying the tenure type, while UK government is a typical example in implementing mix tenure policy. However, the situation of Hong Kong seems different, social stigma on public housing is less apparent than western countries while living in public housing is sometimes perceived as fortunate due to low rent cost and good quality. In Hong Kong, government has not adopted any mix tenure policy whereas mix tenure of public housing, mix of renters and owners, is an unintended consequence of Tenant Purchase Scheme (TPS). In order to understand why social stigma seems less apparent in Hong Kong, this research is going to examine, first, the situation of social stigma on public housing in particular to Lam Tin district where a place with high density of public housing and mix tenure, second, if mix-tenure can alleviate social stigma on public housing in Hong Kong in which the research area will be focus on the aspects of unemployment and security because public housing is perceived as concentration of unemployment and crimes. In regard to the above research question, two sets of questionnaires were conducted to both residents living in TPS estates and private estates in order to understand their different perceptions on the unemployment and security of public housing, and thereby the survey result will be compared with the actual statistics from governmental bodies. Generally speaking, the survey analysis indicated that both sides of resident have apparent social stigma on the security of public housing while unemployment is less seen. What is more, it is interesting that the survey findings are different from the actual situation. Although residents believed that the crime rate is higher in public housing than private housing, there is neither positive nor negative relation between the variables of high density of public housing and crime rates. Social stigma on security was apparently seen from the survey in which majority of respondents agreed with high crime rate in public housing, yet Hong Kong government is not intended to solve the problem as what UK government did because of its historical political philosophy and financial constraints. For instance, Hong Kong government is reluctant to restrict the private developers through mix tenure policy since it would affect the historical philosophy of free economy for Hong Kong. Second, governors are accountable to explain how the public money was spent, and hence government is sensitive on spending large amount of public money to improve the security service and system. In view of the political and financial considerations, it is believed that tackling social stigma on public housing would put at lower priority in government's agenda. Last but not least, since the survey data is only collected in Lam Tin due to time and cost limits, the findings are not extensive and could not apply to all districts of Hong Kong especially for those areas without mix-tenure. In this regard, to have a further analysis on social stigma of Hong Kong public housing, author suggested widening the data collection to conduct a more comprehensive survey. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

Hong Kong, such an international metropolis, is well known for its free market with limited government interventions. In terms of the housing sector, the Hong Kong government always plays an important role to maintain the sustainable housing development. Thus, lots of housing policies were introduced in the past several decades. One of them was the Tenants Purchasing Scheme (TPS)released in 1998, which helped the tenants of Public Rental Housing to purchase their flats with a great discount. However, as being blamed by its adverse effect on the housing market, the TPS was suspended in 2002. Since the housing price kept growing in the last several years and the pursuit of home ownership became much more difficult, the feasibility of restarting TPS has been widely discussed. However, the Hong Kong government has clearly stated that it will not be restarted due to limited amount of PRH flats and the large number of applicants in the Waiting List (WL) of PRH. After series of investigation, it is assumed and proved that a new TPS can be an effective way to promote home ownership under Hong Kong’s special circumstance. If the payment of land premium is adjusted and more PRH tenants are able to purchase their flats, the conflict between housing supply and housing demand can be lessened. In this way, more citizens are to become property owners and the public housing recourses can be better used. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

Spatial imbalance of jobs and housing has been extensively researched in the Western cities; however the findings may not be applicable in Hong Kong's situation as a compact city with its unique geographical characteristics. Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated cities in the world. To deal with the scare of urban land problem, the Hong Kong Government started to develop New Towns in the suburban areas, because lands for residential use are getting scarce especially in Kowloon and the Hong Kong Island, where traditionally the urban area and business districts are located. When the government first introduced the concept of New Town development, it was intended to develop self-contained communities. However, observations shown that long-distance travels for employment and high transportation costs are common cases for residents in Hong Kong New Towns. The time and costs spent in accessing jobs may affects the lives of the New Town residents, especially for some lower income people who cannot afford such expense. Other social impact might also be caused, such as increasing transport load to the road network. In the light of these issues, this study aimed to assess the extent of job-housing mismatch in Hong Kong particular to the New Towns, to see if there's any social impact brought by the job-housing mismatch condition of Hong Kong, particular to the New Towns residents and to see if the job-housing mismatch condition of Hong Kong affects New Town residents' quality of life, especially for the lower income group, with reference to a case study of Tung Chung, and finally, provide suggestions for future development of Tung Chung. In this study, the extent of job-housing mismatch is assessed by comparing different districts with the city's general situation as a whole, to spot out the districts with relatively higher level in job-housing imbalanced. From this study, it was found that job-housing mismatch is more serious in the inner city urban area with longer development history in Kowloon and also in the New Towns. In these districts, social impact, like lower employment rate, lower median income and adding loads to transportation system might be brought by the job-housing mismatch. From the case study of Tung Chung lower-income residents, it is found that job-housing mismatch caused obstacles for employment, and residents' satisfaction level to their dwelling place is low. It is also found that the effects of job-housing mismatch are also affecting their family member and their social life. It is suggested that extending the MTR Tung Chung line and the development of an employment center e.g. an industrial estate will ease the mismatch problem in Tung Chung. The Government should, at the same time consider the problem of poverty concentration in future New Towns developments. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

Sub-divided units (SDU) and the similar type of tiny accommodation namely cage home and cubicle apartment have been existed in Hong Kong for a long period of time. Despite the factthat the living condition of those flats is usually undesirable, there are views in the community that there is demand in the market because these flats can provide affordable urban accommodation to those who are not eligible for Public Rental Housing (PRH) or those who wish to live in the urban area which is closer to their workplaces or their children's place of study at a cheaper rent. The repeated fire incidents happened in the tenement buildings consisted of SDU causing number of casualties has widely aroused the public concern about the safety of SDU. Although the HK government has been implementing measures since 2011 to tackle the problems of SDU, the number of people living in SDU has still greatly increased from 53,000 in 2007 to 171,300 in 2013, accounting for 2.4% total population of Hong Kong. In fact, the increase of SDU not only reflects that many low-income group cannot afford the high housing rent, but also many households are being forced into inappropriate or sub-standard accommodation. J Pynoons, R Schafer, C Hartman (2012) stated that the quality and location of housing affect the security, happiness, and stability of families, and have serious implications for the economic and social wellbeing of our urban areas. The problems arising from SDUs not only affect the individual of tenants, but also impose hazard to the building management, fire safety, building structure and social order. Due to speculation and limited land supply, the problems of SDUs were still remained unsettled and the housing price has still been escalating to a higher recorded price causing shortage of adequate housing supply and thus the increase of rental price on housing. With rents escalating and Housing Authority waiting lists lengthening, low income households, particular the households who were not eligible to or awaiting for PRH were forced into inappropriate and sub-standard accommodation. Although the government has formed a long Term Housing Strategy (LTHS) Steering Committee to look into the housing problems of grassroots families, it would not see the proposed measures shall immediately solve the housing problems, particularly in relation to SDUs within a short period of time. All the proposed measures require number of years to plan, discuss and compromise with different parties. The goal of this dissertation is to review the phenomenon of SDU and to study the reasons of trend of such phenomenon. Without a thorough understanding on the phenomenon of SDU and the reasons of trend, no proper measures shall be implemented to tackle the problems of SDU. The phenomenon of SDU shall be deemed to be the result of number of reasons relating to land supply and housing demand. The ever rising housing price, the attitude and direction of property developers, the housing policy towards affordable housing and the high cost of living are the factors affecting the supply and demand of affordable housing whereas decreasing vacancy in the private rental market, lack of funding, lack of private development of affordable housing, increasing rent prices, lack of long-term affordable housing planning and the absence of a comprehensive housing policy cause the supply of affordable housing cannot meet the increasing demand. Besides, the attitude of people who worried that affordable housing will increase traffic, reduce their property values and lack of safety in their communities, no one wants to be near or to have additional affordable housing in their communities. These attitudes further make the government difficult to find suitable locations for affordable housing. Besides, various articles and news revealed that many people living in SDU are single parenthood, mental illness, disable and addiction to drugs and drink. However, there is no survey to reflect or indicate the real situation. Government should look into the real situation and to effect proper measures to tackle the problems of the above people. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

The urban redevelopment will be a trend and mainstream in the development of housing needs. In addition to the elderly problems in some old city districts, improvement in living standard, housing needs as well as to preserve the historical buildings are the concern in the redevelopment of a new urban. The ageing problem with related to the housing development in the urban redevelopment projects are the focus in this research study. It aims to understanding the elderly problem in the progress of the redevelopment projects and the needs that can satisfy the elderly people as they have been the labor group to promote Hong Kong’s prosperity in the early century. The elderly people deserved to have a better living of environment. By conducting the in depth interview with the social worker/ volunteer and the questionnaires with the elderly people, more information will be revealed on the thoughts and needs of the elderly people and turning out to suggest and recommend for improving the urban redevelopment to the URA. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management