'Prison-cell' flats show limits of housing policy

Hong Kong

SOMETIME later this year, Hong Kongers may be able to pay for the privilege of living in apartments so small they're comparable to prison cells.

Then, a local developer is due to start signing tenants for a project in the Happy Valley district where most flats could have a "useable floor area" of about 61 sq ft, or 5.7 sq m, according to a pre-construction filing with the Buildings Department.

That's slightly less space than Stanley Prison, a 30-minute drive across the Hong Kong island, affords its inmates.

Cramped living spaces in the world's major cities are nothing new. But few places have reached such extremes as Hong Kong, where housing affordability has become a defining political issue two decades after its handover to China. Among the array…