Several organisations have expressed an interest in operating the first batch of temporary public housing flats, expected to be open for tender early next year, the Hong Kong minister has revealed while defending the removal of a remote site.

Secretary for Housing Winnie Ho Wing-yin on Saturday said the government had decided to remove a transitional housing site in Sheung Shui that could yield 1,100 “light public housing” flats, saying the location was too remote and lacked infrastructure, which would lead to high development costs.

“It does not have many infrastructure facilities, and channels, electricity and even some sewage treatment facilities need to be redone,” she told a radio programme. “It is also quite far from a transport connection point to the site in Lin Tong Mei [in Sheung Shui].”

“The development cost is really high, and the number of flats it could yield is not too many, only 1,100 units,” she added, noting newly selected sites would make up for the missing homes.

Ho also said that the overall 30,000 temporary homes offered to people waiting to move into public rental flats remained unchanged and expected all of them to be completed by 2027.

She revealed that several organisations had already expressed an interest in operating the homes, without elaborating.

“I can see that the organisations which are interested know that this project can really help people and benefit society,” she said. “They kept asking questions about it and hoped to help with the project.”

Hong Kong officials cut estimated cost of 30,000 flats by another HK$1.69 billion

The second batch of 13,000 temporary housing flats will be built on nine sites rather than four as initially suggested, according to a bureau document submitted earlier to the legislature.

With the removal of the site in Sheung Shui, authorities have located a new location in Ma On Shan to build 860 homes. It also added another five vacant or to-be-emptied schools to yield 600 flats in total.

The number of flats in other planned locations has also been adjusted, with 1,720 flats on a plot at Chai Wan, 4,200 homes in Siu Lam and another 5,620 at Tuen Mun.

The move has drawn concerns and criticism from lawmakers, who said some of the new sites would worsen existing problems of insufficient transport facilities and infrastructure in their area.

Ho argued that some of the flats converted from vacant school sites would only accommodate one to two people each, which would not put a huge burden on local traffic. Their construction was relatively easy as it only involved separating flats and adding independent toilets, which would take up to a year.

She said four of the five schools were still in operation and expected two of them would start construction in the middle of next year.

Authorities earlier revealed the latest estimate of HK$24.75 billion (US$3.2 billion) for building the temporary homes, down 9.6 per cent from the initial HK$27.39 billion suggested last December.

Hong Kong’s light public housing scheme secures HK$14.9 billion funding approval

The minister also said the “light public housing” scheme was key to helping cut the waiting time for public flats to 4½ years in 2026-27, adding that the average duration would remain capped at six years.

The waiting time for a permanent public rental flat is currently 5.6 years.

“Only a large number of light public housing flats, 30,000 of them, can help those in need and shorten the waiting time,” she said.