SMALL HOUSE POLICY IN : TRADITIONAL RIGHT OR UNFAIR PRIVILEGE?

Case ID: 2021034C

Abstract

Hong Kong’s 1972 (SHP) was the subject of much debate. This policy was partly intended to preserve the rural character of villages in the by facilitating male descendants of indigenous villagers to build small houses. Supporters of this policy, led by the villagers’ representative body, argued that the building of small houses was a traditional right guaranteed by the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution. Others said that the policy conferred an unfair privilege, pointing to abuses that detracted from the policy’s original intent. Disagreements centred around issues of sustainability and discrimination. This case provides an overview of the SHP’s origin and some of the changes it went through, followed by details of disputes on the policy, as well as reforms proposed by various stakeholders.

This case study will enable students to: • Acquire a better understanding of the SHP, its origins, and the controversies it engendered; and • Knowledgeably discuss the advantages and drawbacks of the SHP and possibilities for future improvements.

Introduction

The SHP faced much criticism for being a misnomer since its introduction in November 1972. In the U.S. and Canada, the average sizes of newly-built homes were 2,600 and 1,950 square feet (sq

This case was developed by Dr. Holvert HUNG. The case does not reflect the views of the Division of Public Policy, Institute for Public Policy, and Leadership and Public Policy Executive Education, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, nor is it intended to suggest correct or incorrect handling of the situation depicted. The case is not intended to serve as a primary source of data and is meant solely for class discussion.

Copyright © 2021 by the Division of Public Policy, Institute for Public Policy, and Leadership and Public Policy Executive Education at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. All rights reserved. This publication can only be used for educational purposes.

ft) respectively. In the U.S., a small house was defined as a home smaller than the average, but larger than 1,150 sq ft.1 In the UK, newly built small houses could average just 915 sq ft.2 In the last two decades or so, micro homes—those smaller than 215 sq ft—became popular in Japan, particularly in crowded cities like Tokyo.3 In Hong Kong, a ‘small house’ under the SHP referred to a village house in rural areas of the New Territories, which was a three-storey dwelling unit with each floor with no larger than 700 sq ft.

Such a ‘small house’ could be three to seven times larger than typical flats in high-rise residential buildings, which is where most Hongkongers lived. Between 2013 and 2017, residential flats in Hong Kong continually became smaller, but averaged about 628 sq ft. According to Shrink That Footprint, an independent research group, the average size of Hong Kong apartments could be as small as 484 square feet.4 There were even some dwelling units under 100 sq ft in certain areas.5 Because the average Hongkonger had such a small living space, many criticized the SHP for having a misleading name. In subsequent sections, this case study will discuss the various reasons for the SHP being a contentious issue.

Hong Kong had the most expensive housing in the world. For ten years running, Hong Kong was rated the world’s least affordable place to live.6 As of end-March 2020, the monthly rent for a 70- square-metre (m2; about 750 sq ft) flat averaged about HK$60-75/m2 for a public flat and HK$263- 425/m2 for a private flat. As of end-2019, the purchase prices of private permanent housing flats averaged between HK$128,981/m2 and HK$183,368/m2.7

Villages varied greatly in their accessibility and amenities. While some lacked proper infrastructure such as road, rail, electricity, and water, other villages fared better. Therefore, reserving government-owned land for village expansion under the SHP was criticized for being at odds with the increasing scarcity of land for housing. The SHP included a provision that allowed indigenous villagers in the New Territories without land to apply for land grants at concessionary rates. With the deepening crisis of unaffordable housing prices, there were demands to reform the SHP, which indigenous villagers and (their rural advisory and statutory body) staunchly defended as a traditional right. Moreover, the Basic Law guaranteed this traditional right. Article 40 of the Basic Law stated that “The lawful traditional rights and interests of the indigenous inhabitants of the ‘New Territories’ shall be protected by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.” A recent Court of Appeal ruling also upheld the traditional right of male indigenous villagers to build homes not just on private land, but also on government land granted to them.8

The main supporters (Heung Yee Kuk and indigenous villagers) and opponents (non-indigenous villagers) of the SHP were in disagreement for decades, and some politicians and environmental groups also took sides in the debate. Opponents argued that the SHP was unsustainable given increasing demand for small houses and the increasing scarcity of land for . They also argued that the policy was inherently discriminatory in terms of gender and ancestry.

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On the other hand, supporters continued to demand that their legally protected traditional rights be upheld.

The Hong Kong government stood at the center of this debate. Although it was bound by the Basic Law, the government had long recognized the need to review the SHP and was aware of growing social tensions on this issue, and had continually tried to address exploitation of the SHP by villagers with new rules and by enforcing existing ones. In 2012, then-Secretary of Development Cheng Yuet-ngor (now Chief Executive [CE]) called the SHP a ‘hot potato’ for successive governments.9

The case study provides an overview of the SHP, explaining its historical roots, stakeholders, institutions, and policy mechanics. This is followed by a brief discussion of some of its more controversial aspects (inequities, unsustainability, and policy flaws that enabled exploitation) and the associated arguments for and against the policy. Some previously proposed solutions will also be discussed.

Figure 1: Word cloud on the SHP (Source: LegCo, https://www.legco.gov.hk/research-publications/english/essentials-1516ise10-small-house- policy.htm)

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Readers of this case study are encouraged to adopt the perspective of a policymaker facing this dilemma, and to think about possible policy solutions to this highly sensitive issue. Readers should conduct a stakeholder analysis to draw out specific implications of these policy options for various stakeholders, and how their concerns can be addressed.

Introduction of the Small House Policy

A ‘small house’ as defined under the SHP evolved in the decade following the policy’s introduction in 1972. In the beginning, the typical size of a small house was 436 sq ft with one storey and a pitched roof. In 1974, the British colonial government allowed villagers to build up to a height of two-and-a-half storeys, which included a pitched roof and a cockloft. In 1975, the government further increased this to three storeys, but with a flat concrete roof. Bowing to pressure from villagers for more space, the government again expanded the allowable floor space to no more than 700 sq ft for each storey in the 1980s. This size restriction remained in effect until today. The current height limit of a three-storey small house was 27 ft (8.23 m).

The SHP applied to any male indigenous villager over 18 in a recognized village10 in the New Territories who was a descendent of a village resident from 1898. 11 He was entitled to one application to build a small house for himself. If he owned a plot of suitable land, he would be granted a free building license for a small house. If he owned a plot of land unsuitable for construction, he could exchange it for government land, which would be priced at a concessionary premium of two-thirds full market value. Lastly, if he did not already own any land, he could apply for a private treaty grant to purchase government land at a concessionary premium of two-thirds full market value. In any case, the small house had to always be located within the village zones and village environs. 12 This right protected by the SHP was also known as the ‘Ding’ (male descendant) right.

Prior to 1972, Ding rights—customary in New Territory villages—entitled sons to build village houses on their own land according to the orderly layout of their villages. However, government permission was required to build on agricultural land. Eligible villagers who did not own suitable land had to bid for government-owned land via auctions. Faced with the increasing scarcity of suitable land and prices which put them out of reach of the average villager, Heung Yee Kuk urged the government to review the procedure for building village houses in 1971. The following year, the government introduced the SHP, which allowed for the building of small houses, but set maximum dimensions for them to limit development within villages and preserve their rural characters. Under the SHP, land auctions for eligible villagers who did not own land were abolished and replaced with private treaty grants.

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Small houses were formally known as New Territories Exempted Houses. Eligible villagers had to shoulder construction costs themselves, but provided that these village houses did not exceed the maximum allowable dimensions under the SHP, such construction was exempted from the Buildings Ordinance (cf. Buildings Ordinance (Application to the New Territories) Ordinance (Cap. 121)), and this allowed works to begin without the engagement of an Authorized Person (i.e., architect, engineer, or surveyor approved by the government) and without the approval of building plans by the .

When the SHP was introduced, Roger Nissim, a chartered surveyor and author, noted that the government began to more aggressively pursue its expansion program by building new towns in the New Territories to decongest urban areas on and Peninsula, which had already become increasingly cramped.13 The first of these new towns were , , and . These were followed by several new towns in other parts of the New Territories. Since the construction of these new towns entailed land resumption (forced acquisition) that affected indigenous villagers and their land, the SHP was also seen by some as a compensatory mechanism. Nissim wrote that the SHP…

… became one way of compensating the indigenous population by ensuring that their needs and traditions were respected and that they could also benefit from the major changes that were being forced upon them, particularly the development of the New Towns and their associated infrastructure.14

Seen in this way, the SHP was both instrumental and indispensable to the new towns programme.

The SHP had other benefits as well to both villagers and the government. The policy was designed partly to bring the problem under control and to improve housing in the New Territories. Moreover, the SHP improved living standards for villagers. Before the SHP, the government resorted to unusual measures to prioritize the sale of government-owned land to villagers for small houses, such as scheduling land auctions at dawn to discourage participation from village outsiders, or issuing temporary structure permits for small houses without accompanying land titles. Post SHP, many of these temporary structures were quickly replaced with permanent ones, improving housing quality. The SHP also ensured the provision of drainage and sewerage facilities. For some villages, the SHP helped to maintain the cohesiveness of their communities and to preserve their rural characters. For the government, the SHP was a significant source of revenue, even if land was sold to villagers at a discount off full market value.

Since 1982, the main government agency involved in administering the SHP was the under the , which was responsible for screening applications,

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verifying land status, carrying out land surveys and defining site boundaries, preparing grant documents, issuing Certificates of Exemption and Certificates of Compliance, and assessing land premium.

Other departments involved in the SHP were the (which liaised with Heung Yee Kuk, Rural Committees, and Village Representatives), the Planning Department (which prepared Outline Zoning Plans that included Village Type Development zones); the Fire Safety Department; and the Antiquities and Monuments Office (responsible for historical and heritage elements in villages such as declared monuments, given that many of these villages in the New Territories were centuries old).

Contentious Issues

The decades-long debate over the SHP were mainly over issues of sustainability and land resources, abuse of policy loopholes, speculation and corruption, and the policy’s discriminatory nature.

Sustainability and land resources

Post SHP, land within villages and their surroundings suitable for small houses continued to become scarcer, which necessitated the expansion of village zones that even encroached into Green Belt zones in some instances. According to planning regulations, there was supposed to be a general presumption against development within such Green Belt zones. Between 1972 and 2018, of the 42,678 small-house applications approved by the government, 14,373 (33 per cent) were built on government land obtained via private treaty grants or land swaps.15 As of 30 June 2019, the government had granted 28,305 free building licenses, 10,763 private treaty grants, and 3,610 land swaps to eligible villagers.

The government seemed to lack statistics for potentially eligible small house applicants for the coming years, but Heung Yee Kuk had their own estimates. In 2003, Heung Yee Kuk estimated there were 240,000 indigenous villagers eligible for the SHP. Based on rough calculations by the Civic Exchange, the demand for small houses would eventually exceed the supply of land currently reserved by the government for small house development, even if not every eligible villager applied for a small house due to various factors such as emigration.16

The growing number of small house applications every year pressured the government to further expand village zones via rezoning or land-use amendments or by invoking the Village Expansion Area scheme introduced in 1981. Indigenous villagers argued that expanding village zones was

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unavoidable because small house ownership was part of their traditional rights. However, other stakeholders in Hong Kong saw the SHP as fundamentally unsustainable given the general shortage of housing land, and disputed that small houses were indeed part of the traditional rights of the indigenous villagers. The late Lau Wong-fat, then-chairman of Heung Yee Kuk, strongly urged the government to reiterate its support for protecting the traditional rights of indigenous villagers in the early 2000s.

In 2015, Kwok Cheuk-kin, crowned by the media as the “king of judicial reviews,” launched an unprecedented judicial challenge against the SHP.17 He was joined by social activist Hendrick Lui Chi-hang in the legal case against the government. They sought to abolish the entire policy by arguing in court that it was unconstitutional. The lawsuit was only partially successful.

On 8 April 2019, the Court of First Instance upheld the entitlement for male indigenous villagers to build small houses, but ruled that this right only applied to privately-owned land. In other words, granting land to indigenous villagers via private treaty grants or land swaps was unconstitutional and unlawful. In his judgement, Mr. Justice Anderson Chow Ka-ming concluded that among the three principal means of constructing small houses under the SHP, only free building licenses were traceable to the early 1900s:

It would appear from the evidence before the court that this form of land grant by the government, which started in about 1906, was made on the understanding that prior to the New Territories lease, the villagers in the New Territories were entitled to build houses on their land without having to seek the approval of, or make payment to, the imperial authorities or the subsoil landowner, although they would have to seek the consent of the village elders before building the houses […] I am of the view that the Ding rights in the form of free building licence is a lawful traditional right and interest of the New Territories indigenous inhabitants within the meaning of Basic Law Article 40, but not private treaty grant or exchange.18

Indeed, some had argued before that even though indigenous male villagers had a right—protected under Article 40 of the Basic Law—to build small houses on land that they owned, the policy of providing land to those without any land had no legal basis and was simply an administrative choice. 19 Because this ruling was not retroactive, the government could continue processing applications for small houses on land acquired through private treaty grants and land swaps prior to 8 April 2019. And although the ruling would not take effect for another six months, out of prudence the government immediately suspended applications for private treaty land grants and land swaps. At the same time, the government announced that it would appeal this ruling to the Court of Appeal.20

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Figure 2: Small houses in the New Territories (Source: South China Morning Post, https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3117547/hong-kongs- court-appeal-reverses-ruling-fully-restore-male)

In January 2021, the Court of Appeal overturned the previous ruling and upheld the legality of private treaty land grants and land swaps for male indigenous villagers. The three Court of Appeal judges concluded that private treaty land grants could indeed be traced back to 1909, and that land exchanges—although introduced later—were a “practical way of overcoming common difficulties” that villagers encountered.21

Kenneth Lau Ip-keung, who succeeded his father as chairman of Heung Yee Kuk, considered the judgment a ‘big win,’ beneficial not just to indigenous villagers in the New Territories, but also to all Hongkongers, saying that small houses could be part of the solution to Hong Kong’s housing crunch.22

Speculative small house development

Another controversy stemmed from prevalent abuse and violation of the SHP, and the various ways in which the policy had deviated from its original objectives. Some examples of these abuses included fraudulent claims of eligibility, unauthorized constructions, and illegal occupation of government land adjacent to small houses for backyard gardens, car parks, or commercial purposes. Perhaps the most egregious abuse was property speculation.

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Under the SHP, land granted for small houses came with restrictions on alienation (subsequent sale) either in perpetuity or for a number of years, depending on the type of land grant. However, the SHP also allowed this restriction to be lifted once the discount given (i.e., the difference between the price paid for the land and its full market value) at the time of the grant was fully repaid to the government. Such repayments were not required for some types of land grants if the owners only sold them upon expiry of restrictions. Table 1 shows the different restrictions on alienation according to the type of land grants.

However, this policy led to the speculative development of small houses. A 2002 report by the Audit Commission noted that some indigenous villagers sold their small houses soon after receiving Certificates of Compliance. 23 A separate 2013 report by Civic Exchange (an environmental NGO) based on its own research, echoed these findings by the Audit Commission:

The Audit Commission reported that 43% of newly built village houses had been sold between 1997 and 2002, while the Managing Director of Surpass Property Strategy Consultancy said, in 2002, that more than 80% of the small houses were constructed for sale rather than for occupancy by the indigenous villager. However, the Lands Department did not take any action against the practice of small house selling because they could not reject applications which were submitted in accordance with the terms of restrictions on alienation. This results in the rampant practice of cashing in on the eligibility for the small house concessionary grant by many indigenous villagers without violation of the SHP, reflecting the ineffectiveness of the restrictions on alienation for small house grants.24

Some indigenous villagers profited off land grants and land swaps by selling small houses they built to property developers. Some also engaged in illegal trading of ‘Ding’ rights on the black market, facilitated by savvy local agents. This involved making false declarations in small house grant applications that they intended to occupy the house themselves, and had no intention at the time of application—or had not made any private arrangements—to transfer the ownership of the house to other individuals or developers. Despite the illegality of this practice, villagers were lured into it by lucrative profits. One researcher described how these under-the-tables deals between villagers and developers took place:

Usually villagers would enter into some form of good-faith agreement with a developer. Afterwards, the villagers would pursue an application to build a small house following the normal routine for finding an appropriate piece of land and go through all the necessary processes to apply for a building permit. For a project that involves multiple “dings” the developer would have to approach each qualifying villager separately.25

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Table 1: Restriction on alienation for different types of small house grants (Source: Audit Commission, Small house grants in the New Territories)

In fact, several people had been arrested by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) for such false declarations.26 Nissim, the chartered surveyor and author, wrote that such abuses made “a mockery” of the original policy intent of enabling villagers to provide homes for themselves within their own villages.27

Fundamentally discriminatory nature

Another major bone of contention related to the discriminatory nature of the policy on the basis of gender. When the Court of Appeal judges ruled on the SHP, they wrote that the policy’s designers were well aware of its discriminatory nature. Many have argued that, given global awareness of gender equality issues and its incorporation into many international agreements today, such discriminatory policies should no longer be allowed.

In fact, an exemption for the SHP was explicitly included in the Sex Discrimination Ordinance (Cap. 480) enacted in 1996. Although the Equal Opportunities Commission had been lobbying the Hong Kong government to repeal this exemption by amending the ordinance, this had yet to be done till today because—according to the government—the legislation was undergoing a review.

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In response, the Equal Opportunities Commission urged the government to expedite the review and ensure that government policies did not discriminate on the basis of gender.28

52-year-old Leung Chuen-fong, a female resident in the New Territories, complained about the SHP in an interview with Aljazeera, “It really is unfair. Parents would always spoil the sons — everything was reserved for the boys. It doesn’t matter how competent the girls are.”29

Controversial Solutions to a Complicated Issue

Various solutions were proposed to problems caused by the SHP, all of which were bound to be controversial if implemented. Such solutions usually included having the courts revisit its interpretation of Article 40 of the Basic Law. This would then enable the government to reform or abolish the policy. Otherwise, the SHP would continue to be in place until the Basic Law expired in 2047.30

Some stakeholders were resigned to the possibility that the SHP would survive for the lifetime of the Basic Law. Others argued in favor of sunsetting the policy, pointing out that former CE Leung Chun-ying had supported setting a deadline for the SHP, and that then-Secretary for Development Carrie Lam had remarked during her tenure that the policy could not go on indefinitely and needed to have an expiry date by revoking small house rights for male indigenous villagers born after 2029 (i.e., those younger than 18 in 2047, when the Basic Law expires).31

Other measures had been proposed to prevent or minimize abuse of the SHP. One proposal was for a permanent moratorium on alienation for small houses built with land swaps or private treaty grants. This would permanently ban the resale of such small houses, but would allow villagers to transfer their small houses to descendants. Alternatively, the government could improve the vetting of small house applicants and penalize false declarations, or impose statutory planning controls over what villagers were permitted to do with village land, which would prevent and penalize the destruction of unused farmland or fishponds to create suitable land for small houses.

Summary

The 1972 SHP created by the colonial government was intended to improve rural living conditions in the New Territories, protect the rural character of villages, and alleviate the increasing scarcity of suitable land for small house development. The policy was also partly in response to lobbying from Heung Yee Kuk for the government to facilitate male descendants of indigenous villagers to exercise their rights to build village housing.

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Over the years, pressure mounted on government to rethink or even scrap the SHP because of its unsustainability and discriminatory nature. Opponents argued that the policy protected an unfair privilege rather than a right, given that most Hongkongers lived in tiny flats, and Hong Kong’s severe lack of residential land and skyrocketing housing prices. Heung Yee Kuk defended the policy as indispensable to the exercise of a traditional right, and even suggested increasing the maximum allowable number of storeys for small houses to alleviate land scarcity and to further facilitate eligible villagers in exercising their rights.32 Despite the recent ruling by the Court of Appeal upholding the SHP, debate on this policy will most likely persist in Hong Kong in the absence of acceptable solutions.

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Endnotes

1 “Encouraging Development of Smaller Homes,” Sustainable Consumption Toolkit – Housing, Urban Sustainability Directors Network, https://sustainableconsumption.usdn.org/initiatives-list/encouraging-development- of-smaller-homes. 2 Claire Lloyd, “14 Small Homes Under 100m2,” June 2, 2020, Future Publishing Limited Quay House, https://www.homebuilding.co.uk/ideas/small-homes-gallery. 3 “Living Large in Tiny Japanese Homes,” Hot Concepts, All About Japan, https://allabout- japan.com/en/article/8161/. 4 Matthew Kegan, “Pipe dreams: can ‘nano’ apartments solve Hong Kong’s housing crisis?,” May 21, 2018, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/may/21/nano-apartments-hong-kong-housing-crisis. 5 “Hong Kong’s Already Small Homes are Shrinking,” JLL, https://www.jll.com.mo/en/trends-and- insights/cities/hong-kongs-already-small-homes-are-shrinking. 6 Demographia, “16th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey: 2020,” http://www.demographia.com/dhi.pdf. 7 Transport and Housing Bureau, “Housing in Figures 2020,” August 31, 2020, https://www.thb.gov.hk/eng/psp/publications/housing/HIF2020.pdf. 8 Joyce Ng and Gigi Choy, “Small-house rights of Hong Kong male villagers fully restored after Court of Appeal reverses earlier ruling,” January 13, 2021, South China Morning Post, https://www.scmp.com/news/hong- kong/politics/article/3117547/hong-kongs-court-appeal-reverses-ruling-fully-restore-male. 9 Jasmine Siu, “Controversial small-house policy is constitutional only on private land, Hong Kong High Court rules in landmark hearing,” April 8, 2019, South China Morning Post, https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and- crime/article/3005094/controversial-small-house-policy-constitutional. 10 Recognized villages were those included in the approved List of Recognized Villages compiled by the Lands Department for the purpose of implementing the SHP. As of end-2017, there were 642 recognized villages. (cf. https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201712/06/P2017120600397.htm) 11 This was the year when China and Britain signed, on June 9, the Second Convention of Peking, granting the British colonial government in Hong Kong a 99-year lease of the New Territories. 12 Village environs referred to areas within 300 ft of the outermost corner of the outermost house (or the last Village Type House) built in a recognized village before the introduction of the SHP in November 1972 (cf. https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201712/06/P2017120600397.htm). Village zones referred to areas zoned by the under statutory town plans. The area covered by a village zone does not necessarily coincide with those of the village environ, since a village zone normally excludes areas that are within the village environ but not suitable for small house development and may include areas that are not within the village environ but are suitable for small house development. Since the introduction of the SHP, the Planning Department had been drawing up village zone boundaries for these recognized villages where small house development was permitted (cf. Ibid.). In some cases, the Planning Department decided to redraw the Village Zone after consultations with Village Representatives (Lisa Hopkinson and Mandy Lao Man Mei, Rethinking the Small House Policy (Hong Kong: Civic Exchange, 2003). 13 Roger Nissim, Land administration and practice in Hong Kong (3rd ed.) (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012). 14 Roger Nissim, Land administration, 127. 15 Joyce Ng and Gigi Choy, “Small-house rights.” 16 Mandy Man-lei Lao, Small House Policy II: An update (Hong Kong: Civic Exchange, 2013).

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17 Brian Wong, “Hong Kong’s ‘king of judicial reviews’ faces bankruptcy proceedings but the serial litigant remains unrepentant,” May 8, 2020, South China Morning Post, https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and- crime/article/3083395/hong-kongs-king-judicial-reviews-faces-bankruptcy. 18 Jasmine Siu, “Controversial small-house policy.” 19 Mandy Man-lei Lao, Small House Policy II. 20 The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, “Government appeals against judgment on judicial review of Small House Policy,” July 9, 2019, Press Releases, https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201907/09/P2019070900514.htm. 21 Joyce Ng and Gigi Choy, “Small-house rights.” 22 Ibid. 23 Director of Audit, “Small house grants in the New Territories” in Audit Report no. 39 (Audit Commission: 2002), http://www.aud.gov.hk/pdf_e/e39ch08.pdf. 24 Mandy Man-lei Lao, Small House Policy II, 17. 25 Kwok Wai Ma, “Sustainable development and social policy: a case of indigenous villages in Hong Kong,” Asian Education and Development Studies, 5, no. 3 (2016): 305 – 317. 26 Mandy Man-lei Lao, Small House Policy II. 27 Roger Nissim, Land administration, 130. 28 “Non-Governmental Organization Report of the Equal Opportunities Commission on Hong Kong Special Administrative Region's Second Report under the Convention on Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), August 2006,” Equal Opportunities Commission, https://www.eoc.org.hk/eoc/graphicsfolder/inforcenter/papers/cedawcontent.aspx?itemid=9792. 29 Shawna Kwan, “Hong Kong’s women are fighting for housing equality,” June 27, 2019, Aljazeera, https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2019/6/27/hong-kongs-women-are-fighting-for-housing-equality. 30 Article 5 of the Basic Law states that “The socialist system and policies shall not be practised in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and the previous capitalist system and way of life shall remain unchanged for 50 years.” 31 The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, “Issues relating to New Territories small house policy and small house concessionary rights,” December 14, 2016, Press Releases, https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201612/14/P2016121400461.htm. 32 Joyce Ng and Gigi Choy, “Small-house rights.”

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