As at March of 2014, there are over 168 public housing estates and 766,300 public rental housing flats under the Hong Kong Housing Authority portfolio, it accommodating a total of more than two million people. The estate management and maintenance services are important for government to maintain social cohesion. Housing Department started to outsource property management of public rental housing to property services agents on 1 October 2000 by tender out. After 13 years run for the program, there are about 100 estates (60%) of public rental housing managed by property services agents. Recently, there is criticized that Housing Department outsource too many estates, it should be in-source the management back to itself. It is a chance to review the cost effectiveness and efficiency of outsourcing. This paper is trying to analyze and evaluate the outsourcing of property management of public rental housing in Hong Kong. A comparison on the services performance of public rental housing estates’ tenants by the property services agents and Housing Department. Also secondary data will be used to evaluate the cost effectiveness by outsource the estate management and maintenance services. The objective is achieved by using tenant’s survey. Result from this analysis show that the performance of property services agent provide a better services than Housing Department. It is no doubt that the performance of them is satisfactory and they are more cost effective. However, it does not imply that their services are far better than Housing Department, especially in repair and maintenance aspects. Recommendations are then made to help to review the problems of outsourcing and how to solve it. It is hope the finding can give the direction to Housing Department to use which management mode in new developed estate. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

Since the hygiene condition and medical services improved in the past few decades, the expectation of life has been lengthened generally. With the baby boom effect, the mass increase in fertility following the World War II result in the problem of ageing population around the world nowadays. The phenomenon alerts the governments of global countries to solve the anticipated ageing problem by catering the needs of the elderly. In addition, the needs of the elderly are changing with the improvement of education level and affluence level. It contributes to elderly in middle-class occupying a larger proportion of the elderly in Hong Kong nowadays. Even though the government has introduced various kind of social policies to deal with the increasing demand and changing needs of the elderly, it is still not enough to satisfy the rising aspiration of the middle-income elderly. In order to fill the market niche for the elderly in the middle-income group, the Hong Kong government invited Hong Kong Housing Society to undertake a tailor-made housing scheme for the elderly on a basis of leased-for-life. Under the Senior Citizen Residence Scheme (SEN), it aims to provide an affordable and quality accommodation with integrated service for the middle-income elderly. As the SEN scheme is built upon the concept of "ageing-in-place" and "continuum of care", it seeks to strike an excellent to enhance the quality of life for the elderly residents. Since the SEN scheme is a pilot project, it would be considered as a relatively new and initiative development of elderly housing project comparing to the overseas' housing development. It is valuable to carry out a comprehensive assessment on the achievement of the SEN scheme. As the scheme is developed upon the concept of "ageing-in-place" and "continuum of care", this paper will focus on assess the effectiveness of the scheme in facilitating the concept of ageing-in-place in various aspects. Also, it will investigate the effectiveness of the scheme in affecting the expectation on the future housing arrangement of the elderly. The result of the assessment would be provide a reference for the authority to foresee whether there is any improvement for further development of ageing-in-place policy. As a result, it believed that the assessment of this paper is significant to gives a recommendation for the development of the upcoming project to build a quality living place for the elderly to age-in-place.iii / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

The issue of “subdivided units” has aroused the attention of general public in recent times. It commonly refers to individual living apartments being subdivided into two or more smaller flats for rental purpose. These subdivided housing are often existed in old buildings with crowded living condition, poor hygiene standards and lack of fire safety facilities, which have therefore posed health and safety hazards to thousands of their residents who have no alternatives but to endure this poor living environment due to the financial limitations. In view of the growing public concern towards the issue of subdivided units due to the happening of several tragic cases in recent years involving subdivision of apartments, the government has announced the proposal of a licensing scheme or landlord registration system in early September, 2013 for regulating the safety and hygiene situations of subdivided flats. By examining the current condition of the subdivision of housing units in Hong Kong, the goal of this study is to explore the underlying causes of the subdivision of flats and the implications of this housing issue to the community of Hong Kong. In order to do so, the study first explains the development of subdivided housing in Hong Kong, including the brief history of urban development and housing policy of Hong Kong resulting to subdivision of units, and the development of subdivided housing in the global context is also covered. The environment of subdivided flats is also studied in details, including their building structures, fire safety facilities and environmental hygiene conditions. Then the conceptual framework of the study is going to be discussed, which is to investigate the reasons contributing to the emergence of subdivided units in Hong Kong, in which this study is focused on examining the relationship of “market failure” of housing market and the emergence of subdivided units in Hong Kong. Questionnaire survey is done on the tenants living in subdivided units, which both legal and illegal subdivided units are covered in the survey, whereas an in-depth interview is conducted on the landlord operating the rental business of subdivided dwellings. The next chapter describes and analyses the findings of the survey and in-depth interview. The perspectives of the stakeholders including tenants and landlord of subdivided flats are revealed on their reasons of living in and operating the business of subdivided housing, their evaluation of the living conditions and safety of subdivided flats, their feedbacks towards the Licensing Scheme of subdivided units proposed by government as well as their recommendations for resolving the problem of subdivided flats. The conceptual framework – the relationship of “market failure” phenomenon of housing market and the emergence of subdivided units in Hong Kong will also be discussed based on the analyzed data. Finally, this study ends with the implication that the emergence of subdivided housing is contributing to multi-factors, such as lack of public rental housing units, geographical proximity and astronomically high housing prices. However, among these factors, market failure is considered as the dominant factor of driving the residents, especially lower class to select residing in subdivided dwellings. In view of the analysis result, recommendations are made for assisting policy makers to resolve the subdivided housing problem in Hong Kong. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

The housing demand of young people is important for the sustainable development of the housing market as a source of renewed liquidity. However, nowadays in Hong Kong, many of the young adults found difficulties in purchasing their own home in the booming housing market. By interviewing 14 young adults in Hong Kong for understanding their housing aspirations and housing constraints, this paper argued that the above situation is caused by a “gap” existing between the tenure preference of and the housing options available for the young adults in Hong Kong. It is further argued that the “gap” is constituted by the oligopoly housing tenures system in Hong Kong in which owner occupied housing is promoted as one of the dominating housing tenures, which is beyond the financial capacity of most of the young adults. This paper recommended that the Government should provide assistance for those in need of housing for marriage at top priority. Also, the Government should optimize the use of existing housing units by increasing the tenure opinions and enhancing the mobility of the housing market, particularly by energizing the role of private rental housing in Hong Kong. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

published_or_final_version / Urban Studies / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

published_or_final_version / Urban Studies / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / Economics / Master / Master of Philosophy

"Li" means neighborhoods, "Long" means lanes. These two words combine to describe an urban housing form which characterizes the city of Shanghai. Indissociable from the growth of Shanghai from 1840s to 1949, lilong settlements still comprise the majority of housing stock in the city center today. Inherited traditional dwelling patterns prevailing in the southeast China, profound transformation due to drastic social changes during that era produced lilong housing. Though, these transformation were demonstrated by the evolution of lilong's house forms, the settlement's general organization pattern persisted. / Lilong settlement, as a low-rise, ground-related housing pattern, has many advantageous features: hierarchical spatial organization network, separation of public and private zones, high degree of safety control, strong sense of neighborly interaction and social cohesiveness, and so on. These factors make the lilong neighborhoods a pleasant place to live and hence they are loved by local populace. / This thesis traces the evolution of lilong settlement forms in response to social transformation, and analyzes its indigenous design features and urban characteristics. As an ultimate goal, this thesis also explores the key characteristics of this settlement pattern, and the valuable experience that could be drawn as reference in contemporary housing design.

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