Once designated a quarantine facility during the Covid pandemic, a sprawling site in southern Kowloon, Hong Kong, is set to be home to a youth hostel for thousands of young people, as the city deals with a housing crisis.<\/p>\n
The project in Kai Tak, named Runway 1331 \u2013 after a former airport on the site \u2013 opened on Sunday for trial operations, offering 250 rooms for rent starting at HK$200 ($25; \u00a319) a night.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s part of Hong Kong\u2019s Youth Hostel Scheme, which aims to house young people at affordable rates while they save up to rent or buy their own place.<\/p>\n
Houses in Hong Kong are among the most expensive in the world \u2013 and notoriously small.<\/p>\n
With waits for public rental flats lasting five years on average, many opt to rent subdivided flats where dozens of tenants are packed into a single apartment unit, also known as \u201ccoffin homes\u201d.<\/p>\n
In 2020, the first facility under Hong Kong\u2019s Youth Hostel Scheme started operations. The scheme supports non-governmental organisations to build and operate youth hostels where people can live for up to five years.<\/p>\n
There are currently two facilities in operation \u2013 both in the northwestern New Territories \u2013 which offer rooms to people aged 30 or below.<\/p>\n
The hostel unveiled in Kai Tak on Sunday offers rooms for people aged 40 or below. It also aims to be a cultural hub, with some rent-free rooms set aside for tenants with creative talents.<\/p>\n
These tenants are expected to give back to the community by organising workshops and other events to share their skills, according to local media.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope Runway 1331 ultimately will develop into the world\u2019s biggest incubator for the youth,\u201d said entrepreneur Winnie Chiu Wing-kwan, who is developing the project with a state-owned enterprise, the South China Morning Post reported.<\/p>\n
The Home and Youth Affairs Bureau said it hoped the community would also promote exchanges among Hong Kong tenants and youth from mainland China and abroad.<\/p>\n
The 11.5-hectare (28.4 acres) site, which consists of 3,000 unused quarantine rooms with private toilets, is expected to be fully operational later this year.<\/p>\n
There had been calls for such Covid quarantine facilities to be repurposed to fill the intense housing demand.<\/p>\n
The facility in Kai Tak is one of several quarantine sites that were built during the pandemic, and which could collectively house hundreds of thousands of people.<\/p>\n
As Covid restrictions lifted and these facilities emptied, calls mounted for them to be repurposed into residences to combat the city\u2019s yearslong housing shortage.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Once designated a quarantine facility during the Covid pandemic, a sprawling site in southern Kowloon, Hong Kong, is set to be home to a youth hostel for thousands of young people, as the city deals with a housing crisis. The project in Kai Tak, named Runway 1331 \u2013 after a former airport on the site […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118037\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}