Sandwich Class Housing Scheme

The Sandwich Class Housing Scheme was a scheme from the Hong Kong Housing Society offering apartments to middle-income families, i.e. sandwich class, at concessionary prices during the 1990s in Hong Kong. The purchases were subject to a five-year resale restriction. The first development, Tivoli Garden,[1] was completed in 1995, and was followed by 12 other developments. In total, more than 12,000 units were offered.[2]

Sandwich Class Housing Scheme
Traditional Chinese夾心階層住屋計劃
Simplified Chinese夹心阶层住屋计划
Cantonese YaleGaap sām gāai chàhng jyuh ūk gai waahk
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinJiāxīn Jiēcéng Zhù Wū Jìhuà
Yue: Cantonese
Yale RomanizationGaap sām gāai chàhng jyuh ūk gai waahk
JyutpingGaap3 sam1 gaai1 cang4 zyu6 nguk1 gai3 waak6

Unlike Home Ownership Scheme and Flat-for-Sale Scheme, the owners under Sandwich Class Housing Scheme must pay a land premium before they can sell their flats in the free second-hand property market.[3]

Developments

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The housing estates built under the scheme were:[2] (number of apartments and year of completion into brackets)

Three developments were converted into private properties for sale at full market values:[2]

Land reallocated to Housing Authority:

Sales

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Demand for Sandwich Class Housing apartments was generally high. For example, in 1996, the Hong Kong Housing Society received 6,520 applications for the sale of a batch of 1,696 units in Radiant Towers and Marina Habitat. This level of applications was a 40% increase in comparison to those for Park Belvedere and Tivoli Gardens, in 1995 and 1994 respectively.[7]

In the case of several projects, following a Government policy to suspend the sale of the subsidized flats in September 2001, not all units were sold under the initial Sandwich Class Housing Scheme. These projects include: Marina Habitat, The Pinnacle, Highland Park and Cascades.[4]

All units of Mountain Shore were initially sold within 9 hours in April 2002 at an average price of HK$2,900 per sq. ft.[8]

See also

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References

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