THE city would increase the number of government-subsidized apartments to be built this year to 105,000 this year, doubling the number of cheap homes built last year, Chinese-language media reported yesterday, quoting city housing authorities.
Early this year, the city s planning and construction bureau said it planned to build 62,000 subsidized homes for low-to-medium-income families.
Authorities estimated that about 230,000 households were eligible to apply for a government-subsidized home and the number would grow to 488,000 in 2016, the last year of the 12th Five-Year Program.
The government-subsidized housing program, launched in 2004, was one of the priorities of the city government in the face of skyrocketing property prices over the past few years.
The program initially covered only low-income families with Shenzhen hukou but was extended in May last year to apply to sandwiched families, who did not qualify for low-cost or low-rent accommodation but could not afford expensive commercial housing, even though they had no Shenzhen hukou.
Affordable housing, including Yitiancun and Qiaoxiangcun housing estates, sold for only 30 percent of the market prices.
City planning and construction bureau chief Li Rongqiang was quoted by earlier Chinese language media as saying that the government had been working on a series of preferential policies to encourage companies to become involved in the construction of low-cost and low-rent housing.
A special agency would be set up to handle the planning and construction of government subsidized housing, including land allocation and fund raising.
Shenzhen had built 169,000 public homes over the past five years, 21 percent more than originally planned.
(SD News)
