Hong Kong Housing Authority: Optimize "Building Revitalization 2.0" process to shorten the time required to approve construction contracts.

On September 22, the Chief Executive Officer of the Hong Kong Housing Authority, Wei Zhi Cheng, published a blog post titled "Dedication. Persistence" on the official website. The article stated that over the past year, the Housing Authority team carefully reviewed the process of the "Building Rehabilitation 2.0 Action" ("2.0 Action") and made optimizations to strengthen the support for owners or corporations in the third round of the "2.0 Action". These measures aim to assist owners or corporations in accelerating the appointment of engineering consultants and contractors to prevent delays in building repair works for various reasons. It is expected that with the support of these measures in the four areas, the time from receiving the tentative approval notice to appointing building repair consultants, submitting bid documents, and awarding the engineering contract will be significantly shortened from an average of about 43 months to as fast as 19 months. The original blog post by the CEO is as follows: The government collaborated with the Housing Authority in April of last year to launch the third round of the "Building Rehabilitation 2.0 Action" ("2.0 Action"), providing financial assistance and technical support to more eligible building owners in need to carry out building maintenance, improve living environment, and enhance building safety. During the application period of the third round of the "2.0 Action", the Housing Authority received a total of 1,264 eligible applications involving approximately 1,600 buildings and around 236,000 residential units. A supervisory committee composed of the Development Bureau, Buildings Department, and Housing Authority is currently reviewing the applications, and some eligible buildings have already received tentative approval notices since May of this year. The Housing Authority has assigned dedicated case managers to assist owners in organizing building repair works for these approved cases. In implementing the first and second rounds of the "2.0 Action", the Housing Authority noticed that some building owners, lacking professional knowledge and experience, did not know how to start organizing repair works. There were also cases of disagreements among owners on the scope of works, bidding arrangements, and selection of contractors, leading to delays and failure to comply with the mandatory building inspection notice. Additionally, multiple incidents of exterior wall debris falling from buildings last year revealed that some buildings were not properly maintained or repaired even after receiving the mandatory inspection notice. In light of these incidents, the Chief Executive proposed in last year's Policy Address to review the workflow of the "2.0 Action" and to push owners to expedite the appointment of engineering consultants and contractors, carry out building inspections, and organize repair works earlier. The Buildings Department, Home Affairs Department, and Housing Authority also established a permanent communication mechanism to enhance support for owners in building repairs. Over the past year, the Housing Authority team carefully reviewed the workflow of the "2.0 Action" and made optimizations to strengthen the support for owners or corporations in the third round of the "2.0 Action", in order to effectively carry out building repair works. The four areas of support include: (1) introducing a "prequalification list" when appointing engineering consultants and qualified registered contractors, where applicants for the third round of the "2.0 Action" must invite service providers from the list to bid; (2) developing a repair work progress schedule that will be followed by owners and corporations who have applied for the "2.0 Action"; (3) timely intervention on behalf of owners or corporations in tendering for building repair works; and (4) preparing a set of bidding documents that only cover the scope of the mandatory inspection plan to expedite the bidding process. These measures aim to assist owners or corporations in expediting the appointment of engineering consultants and contractors to prevent delays in building repair works for various reasons. We expect that with the support of these measures in the four areas, owners and corporations in the third round of the "2.0 Action" will be able to appoint building repair consultants, submit bid documents, and award the engineering contract in as fast as 19 months, significantly shorter than the previous average of about 43 months. Issuing Tentative Approval Notices to Eligible Buildings in Priority Order After the application deadline for the third round of the "2.0 Action" on September 30 of last year, the Housing Authority and the supervisory committee composed of relevant government policy bureaus and departments began the approval process for the applications. Based on safety risk assessments, the Housing Authority has been issuing tentative approval notices to eligible buildings in priority order to enable owners and corporations to organize building repair works at an early stage. In response to the Policy Address last year which proposed reviewing the workflow of the "2.0 Action" and enhancing supervision, the Housing Authority has developed four measures to assist owners or corporations who have participated in the third round of the "2.0 Action" to expedite the organizing of building repair works, including: (1) Developing a "prequalification list" In observing the experiences of dealing with cases in the first and second rounds of the "2.0 Action", the Housing Authority team noticed that some owners or corporations, lacking professional knowledge and relevant experience, spent significant time understanding the background, scale, manpower resources, past records, and experiences of different consultants and contractors in the market when selecting companies to provide these services. Owners also compared and discussed the information of different companies for a long time, and if consensus was not reached, the process of hiring consultants or contractors could not commence. In response to these observations, the Housing Authority has developed a "prequalification list" for engineering consultants and contractors, for owners and corporations to reference. The team first invites qualified individuals and inspection personnel registered with the Buildings Department, as well as engineering contractors, to join the list, and then conducts qualification checks and screenings. Service providers who meet specific criteria will be included in the "prequalification list". These criteria include no criminal convictions related to construction work, site safety, occupational safety, corruption, etc. for both the consultant companies and contractors in the past 5 years; past experience in handling repair works of different scales to ensure sufficient experience and capability for the job, and proof of adequate and qualified manpower for service provision by the consultant companies. Additionally, all owners or building corporations participating in the third round of the "2.0 Action" are required to follow the bidding process for hiring engineering consultants to oversee building repair works or appoint qualified registered contractors.All must invite the engineering consultants or contractors on the "pre-qualification list" to submit their bids through the "appropriate electronic bidding platform". In the above situation, the city's building department team will require owners, as well as engineering consultants hired by the owners, to prepare two sets of bidding documents when recruiting engineering contractors. One set will apply to comprehensive maintenance, including the "mandatory building inspection plan" under the scope of "specified inspection and specified repair projects" and unspecified "other projects"; while the other set of bidding documents will only cover the scope of "specified inspection and specified repair projects." This practice ensures that even if owners or corporations fail to reach a consensus on the "other projects," the scope of "specified inspection and specified repair projects" under the "mandatory building inspection plan" will not be affected, preventing delays in the required inspection and repair works.Only when owners come together with determination can major repairs be implemented successfully. I hope that through the explanation above, the public will understand that in addition to assisting the government in implementing various building repair subsidy programs, the Housing Department puts extra resources, formulates different measures, and provides comprehensive technical support to encourage owners to fulfill their responsibilities and expedite building maintenance projects. Currently, each case officer in the Housing Department's building repair team needs to handle about 80 cases on average, including government subsidy programs and other subsidy programs initiated by the Housing Department itself. Therefore, if owners participating in subsidy programs adopt a passive or neglectful attitude, causing delays in maintenance projects, we can only revoke their subsidy applications and reserve these resources for owners who actively fulfill their private building maintenance responsibilities. I believe this is an effective use of public resources. Simply relying on the efforts of the Housing Department team alone is not enough to slow down building aging. Ultimately, it is the unity and determination of owners, reducing disagreements, overcoming difficulties, and carrying out regular maintenance of buildings that is the key to enhancing building safety, improving building conditions, and living environment.