Subdivided flat

Subdivided flats (also called subdivided units) are a ubiquitous kind of rental housing present in Hong Kong. They are flats which shown on the original approved plan of a building being subdivided into two or more individual rooms. Generally, the original non-structural partition walls are removed while the new ones are erected, new toilets and kitchens are installed, and internal drains are added or altered. These works can cause adverse impacts on the safety and hygiene condition of the building if not handled properly. Most subdivided flats are located in old residential buildings. It is estimated that 280,000 people live in subdivided flats or other similarly undesirable conditions. With reference to the study by the Society for Community Organisation, people living in subdivided flats are mainly unemployed citizens, low income family, new immigrants, etc. The average size of a subdivided flat is found to be 30 square feet per person.

The insufficient supply of public housing is one of the important driving forces leading to the appearance of subdivided units. In accordance with the grassroots housing rental price research report 2011 released by the Society for Communication Organization, the government lacks future evaluation of the housing demand in Hong Kong, therefore there is a serious problem of shortage of housing. On the one hand, the government started to decrease the amount of public housing supply from three million units to a half million units per year, which resulted in a significant drop of fifty percent. On the other hand, the demands for housing have increased sharply since 2006. The report mentioned that cases waiting for public housing raised from 129,000 to 152,000 dramatically in 2010 (a 17.8% rise in those waiting for public housing within one year). For people struggling in poverty, due to the long waiting time for public estates, they turn to live in subdivided flats, where rental prices are much cheaper than that of private housing options available.

The second factor leading to the phenomenon comes from the widening wealth gap between the rich and poor. The Gini Coefficient of Hong Kong increased to 0.537, which manifests the serious economic inequality problem. In the subdivided units study report 2009 produced by the Society of Communication Organization, the median monthly personal income of the residents in subdivided units was $3200, which was below the median monthly personal income of the whole population in Hong Kong at that time.

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