The measures you described amounted to just lip service. He did nothing to curb loopholes (he actually made them), and most tellingly, did nothing with the Heung Yi Kuk's brownfield sites, nor re-zoning commercial property's to residential ones. Meanwhile government land auction's were almost all sold for luxury properties who were mostly sold to mainland buyers. He seemed squarely in Beijing's pocket, as much as Carrie lam. See the following as just as an example:
Time to take stock of CY Leung’s housing policyLeung’s “spicy measures†to curb skyrocketing property prices are the latest testimony to his failure to alleviate the housing shortage and ward off speculators.
This has resulted in probably the worst home affordability crisis this city has ever seen in decades.
In another indication of our deepening housing crisis, the number of applications for flats under the public rental housing (PRH) program has hit a record high of 290,000 in September, while the average wait time for applicants has risen to 4.5 years.
According to the Housing Authority’s estimation, the prolonged wait time for PRH applicants is unlikely to see any improvement at least until 2020.
Also very much agree with Hemlock here:
https://www.biglychee.com/2016/10/12...cy-do-nothing/When CY Leung became Chief Executive in 2012, there was talk of emergency housing measures (adapting disused buildings, putting prefabricated shelters on vacant land). Presumably, the idea was thrown out by civil servants who thought it was too much like hard work for them; certainly some top officials feared it would ‘encourage’ listless, scrounging riffraff to move into bad housing in order to be resettled. There was probably also an assumption that a 1998-style correction would soon come and fix things.
In theory, CY has made increasing long-term housing supply his Big Thing. In practice, he complains that it is impossible to find the necessary land – except by taking green-belt areas or, incredibly, sports and recreation facilities. Meanwhile, of course, the Heung Yee Kuk can occupy their brownfield sites, and the property giants can hoard land and unsold units for as long as they please.
Despite this supposed shortage of space, not a week passes without a government land auction. The property developers will use the lots concerned for ‘luxury’ apartments, presumably aimed at Mainland money-launderers to keep empty. No-one asks how this is possible when we have this dire shortage of land (let alone how it is supposed to benefit Hong Kong).