Socio-economic impacts of transitional housing on neighbourhood housing developments in Hong Kong

Abstract

The housing predicament has long been a perennial issue in Hong Kong that requires multipronged measures to alleviate the problem. In recent years, transitional housing has been emerging in different parts of Hong Kong which mitigates the short-term housing shortage issue. As one of the many types of transitional housing, newly-built modular social housing units are erected on vacant land for a temporary period. With the appearance of the physical structure and the newly moved-in tenants, a certain degree of socio-economic impacts may be possibly imposed on the surrounding neighbourhood, which is evaluated in this study. To further decipher the factors of the influence, the transitional housing-related characteristics potentially contributing to the impact are also identified and tested. The “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) attitude is constantly found when proposing low-income housing in a neighbourhood. Reasons for opposition range from the fear of the decline in property value, crime and safety concerns to the weakened social cohesion level. When reviewing the previous literature, there is no universally agreed result on the extent of impacts, in which the empirical outcomes vary hugely with the local context and project characteristics. Therefore, this study aims to scrutinise the socio-economic influence by utilising multiple perspectives, and subsequently provide recommendations for the future transitional housing developments. A mixed-method approach is adopted in this study to evaluate the socio-economic impacts with two case studies, namely Lok Sin Tong Modular Social Housing Scheme and Nam Cheong Street Modular Social Housing Project. As found from the hedonic price models, there is a continuous appreciation in property value after the launch of the project and the moving-in of the tenants. Also, with closer proximity to the projects, the flats are found to be sold at higher prices, despite the small magnitude of effect. The reason for such a finding is contributed by the characteristics of the transitional housing projects. As the projects do not have a huge effect on the property market dynamics, the factor lies upon the psychological preference of the homebuyers. Interview findings suggest that the locational characteristics of the convenient urban locality hugely outweigh any negative effect induced by the transitional housing developments, while the low-rise and temporary nature of the project may also contribute to the positive economic impact on the surrounding property value. For the social impacts, respondents of the online questionnaire generally expressed no or slight adverse influence on their daily life on the crime and safety issues, social cohesion, and traffic problem. In particular, traffic and parking problems as well as personal and family safety contribute the most to the overall impact. Several factors are found to be contributing to the socio-economic impacts, such as locational characteristics, personal characteristics of the surrounding residents, landscaping and estate management of the project, as well as the racial diversity of the transitional housing tenants. With the varying context of distinct projects, different levels of impact are experienced by the neighbours. To limit the adverse impacts on the surrounding communities in future transitional housing developments, it is suggested to select urban locations for development to offset any negative impacts on the property value. Social support services should also be provided not only to minimise the possibility of crime and safety problems but also to optimise the neighbourhood social cohesion. Lastly, the enhancement of estate management should also help the neighbours to embrace the transitional projects.