The Housing Bureau (IH) said in a statement on Friday that right now the“conditions” for the government to implement its so-called Macau Residents Home Purchase Plan – popularly known as “Macau People, Macau Land” – were “not right” as civil society had not reached a consensus on the matter.
The bureau said in the statement that “in an attempt to respond to society’s calls for ‘Macau People, Macau Land’” the government had commissioned the University of Macau and Macau Polytechnic Institute to carry out a study on the matter at the end of 2013, the results of which were published last year.
In order to move the matter forward, the government later replaced the“Macau People, Macau Land” concept with its Macau Residents Home Purchase Plan, according to the statement, pointing out that on May 10 last year the bureau started a 60-day public consultation on the plan.
The bureau said that the government originally positioned the plan as a“supplementary” policy which focused on residents who could afford to buy a government-subsidised home ownership scheme (HOS) flat but not a private property and hoped to improve their living standards by offering them an alternative purchase plan.
During the public consultation the bureau received a total of 14,852 opinions.
“The opinions show there is a polarisation about the plan…there is no consensus in society whether the plan should be implemented or not,” the bureau said, pointing out that “now the conditions to implement the plan are not right”.
The bureau also said that after the public consultation the government better understood the public’s demands regarding its housing policy thus the government planned to study a “new type” of public housing flats and review its social housing system.
The bureau said in a separate statement on Friday it would review and improve its HOS law.
The city’s public housing flats comprise HOS flats and low-rent social housing flats. (macaunews/macaupost)
