Jockey Club Student Village IV Opens: 1,238 Beds at Wong Chuk Hang and the Next Step in HKU's Hall Expansion

A 17-storey building assembled from 952 prefabricated modules shipped from the factory to Police School Road, Wong Chuk Hang — this is not a developer's sales pitch for a new residential project, but the construction method behind The University of Hong Kong's (HKU) newest student residence. On 3 April 2025^※, Jockey Club Student Village IV officially opened — nearly six years after construction began in 2019, and about a year and a half after the building was physically completed in 2023.

The short version: HKU's Jockey Club Student Village IV opened on 3 April 2025 at Police School Road, Wong Chuk Hang. Two 17-storey towers provide 1,238 places^※, marking the second large-scale expansion of HKU's residential college model since Jockey Club Student Village III opened in Kennedy Town in 2015.

# How many beds does Jockey Club Student Village IV actually have — and what did it cost?

Let's put the hard numbers on the table first. HKU's press release^※ confirms that Jockey Club Student Village IV (JCSV IV) comprises four residential colleges, distributed across two 17-storey towers^※, providing 1,238 places in total. The Chinese-language release from the Vice-Chancellor's Office is even more specific: 「合共為學生提供一千二百三十八個宿位」^※ ("providing a total of 1,238 residential places for students"). On funding, the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust^※ donated HK$185 million in total to two projects — the Wong Chuk Hang student village and the Mui Fong Street student residence in Sai Ying Pun. Of that sum, the portion earmarked specifically for the Wong Chuk Hang project was over HK$154 million, disbursed in 2020^※.

One detail worth noting: the figure "1,238" has its own revision history. In December 2022^※, when the project team won the "Outstanding MiC Project Award" at the Modular Integrated Construction Achievement Award Presentation co-organised by the Development Bureau and the Construction Industry Council, the official release cited a different number: "comprising 952 MiC modules, providing a total of 1,224 residential places^※". The two figures differ by 14 places; no official document explains why. We present both here without attributing a cause.

# Why did HKU build its new residence on Police School Road, Wong Chuk Hang?

The backstory of this plot at Police School Road begins with a piece of government land beside the Hong Kong Police College, zoned "government, institution or community" and "green belt". According to HK01's compilation of Town Planning Board applications^※, the site covers roughly 4,306 square metres. HKU first submitted an application in late 2015, receiving conditional approval from the Town Planning Board^※. The University then sought a further relaxation of the building height limit — from 87 metres to 90 metres above Principal Datum^※. At the planning stage, the scheme was described as providing "1,224 student residential units and 33 staff residential units^※".

Once the site was secured, HKU did not follow the conventional cast-in-place concrete route. Instead, it turned the project into one of the Development Bureau's pilot cases for Modular Integrated Construction. According to the Construction Industry Council's MiC project archive^※, construction began in August 2019, using 952 prefabricated components across six types labelled "A" to "F" — type A alone accounts for 476 modules, the largest share. The podium structural transfer level and core walls were built with cast-in-place reinforced concrete, while the residential body used rooms prefabricated in the factory — floors, walls and ceilings included — then hoisted into place on site. This "build rooms in the factory, stack them on site like blocks" approach compresses on-site work into structural assembly, a method increasingly used across Hong Kong's public and private housing to shorten construction time and cut noise and dust.

# The four residential colleges: who lives there, and who paid for them?

The four residential colleges at JCSV IV do not all carry the "Jockey Club" name. Two naming logics coexist: two colleges still go by the numbers "College 1" and "College 2", while the other two are named directly after individuals or foundations.

The D.H. Chen College is named after Chen Din Hwa (1923–2012), founder of the Nan Fung Group and known as the "Cotton Spinning King", who established the D. H. Chen Foundation in 1970. His college was the first of the four to open — a full year and a half before the village's official opening ceremony, D.H. Chen College began taking residents in September 2023^※, roughly one and a half years ahead of the April 2025 inauguration. This indicates the building was delivered and occupied college by college, in phases, rather than all four opening on the same day. The donor behind Karson Choi College is Karson Choi Ka-tsan, son of "Toy King" Choi Chee-ming and current Chairman of Sing Tao News Corporation, awarded an Honorary University Fellowship by HKU in 2023^※. By contrast, College 1 and College 2 still go by numbers, with no public naming donor announced. That is a transitional state worth noting in the naming history of HKU's residential colleges — different both from the traditional halls, whose names accreted over a century after the buildings came first, and from JCSV III, where all four colleges received auspicious Chinese names at the moment the village opened.

# From Village III to Village IV: has the logic of residential college expansion changed?

To understand the Wong Chuk Hang move, it has to be read against the genealogy of HKU's "residential college" model. The University's first residential colleges were the Jockey Club Student Village III, founded in 2012 and inaugurated in 2015 on Lung Wah Street, Kennedy Town, comprising four colleges: Chi Sun, Chun Hing, Lai Tak and the New College. A decade later, JCSV IV transplants the same "residential college" framework to Wong Chuk Hang — but several key parameters have shifted.

The most obvious signal in this comparison table is that the number of places has shrunk rather than grown: JCSV IV's 1,238 places are nearly 30% fewer than JCSV III's 1,800, sitting awkwardly against HKU's recent publicity about expanding hall capacity overall. Yet from another angle, JCSV IV is actually denser: fitting four colleges into two 17-storey towers means the real breakthroughs this phase were residential density per unit of floor area and the construction efficiency of MiC — not simply stacking up more beds. The fee increase is also worth recording: per HKU's official 2026–27 lodging fee schedule, a single room in a JCSV IV residential college costs HK$51,215 per term^※, while the equivalent room at JCSV III is HK$40,800^※ — a decade on, the newly built residential colleges run about a quarter dearer than the older ones, a premium tied directly to newer buildings, a higher share of single rooms and more modern facilities.

# Does HKU actually have enough beds? Is the "guaranteed accommodation" real?

Media coverage tends to compress the opening of JCSV IV into "HKU adds over a thousand new places". Put into the bigger picture of HKU's overall bed supply, though, the story is more complicated. According to a September 2025 report^※, HKU currently provides roughly 7,800 places across its residences — the second highest among Hong Kong's eight UGC-funded universities — of which 40% to 50% are reserved for non-local undergraduates and postgraduates. The University is also building another ~900 places at Pokfulam under a BOT arrangement. The Vice-Chancellor's Office release gives a more focused, cumulative figure: the four Jockey Club–funded student villages together with the Mui Fong Street residence have provided more than 5,000 places to date^※. The two figures measure different things — one is HKU's entire hall stock, the other is the cumulative Jockey Club–supported tally — and they should not be conflated.

So: are non-local first-year students genuinely "guaranteed" a place? The wording from CEDARS Housing's official FAQ is blunt: 「Places in HKU residences are limited and not guaranteed.」^※ — places are limited and not guaranteed. What actually exists on the ground is a housing allowance scheme for non-local full-time undergraduates who, in their first or second year, fail to secure a hall place.

The official application guidelines state outright^※ that the scheme exists because "As there is a shortage of hall places in the University" — HKU itself admits the shortfall; that is what the allowance is for. In other words, HKU's actual commitment to non-local newcomers is not "everyone gets a bed" but "if you don't get one, we reimburse part of your outside rent monthly and yearly" — and the first HK$2,550 of monthly rent comes out of the student's own pocket (a figure that exactly matches the 2025–26 monthly rate for undergraduate hall fees). JCSV IV's 1,238 new places are, in a sense, one concrete move by HKU to narrow that "limited and not guaranteed" gap. But set against roughly 7,800 places university-wide and a steadily rising non-local intake, one student village is not going to close that gap any time soon.

# What is it like to live in JCSV IV?

Beyond the official press releases, first-hand accounts of life there are scarce. One blogger who stayed at JCSV IV as an exchange student recorded her experience^※: all rooms in the village are singles — "All of these rooms are single rooms, with 10 rooms per apartment unit with shared bathrooms^※" — each apartment unit holds 10 rooms sharing bathrooms, with two such units per floor and floors segregated by gender. This is a single personal blog post, uncorroborated by any independent source, so it should be read with due scepticism.

The same post also notes that commuting from Wong Chuk Hang to HKU's main campus at Pokfulam takes about 40 minutes each way^※ — further from the main campus than JCSV III in Kennedy Town. As compensation, JCSV IV is the only HKU residence with an on-site gym^※, and with its high share of single rooms and newer facilities, fees run noticeably higher than at JCSV III^※ — consistent with the official fee schedule's 51,215 against 40,800. Commuting cost on one side, higher rent on the other: those are the two ends of the ledger that Wong Chuk Hang's "further from campus, newer and pricier accommodation" trade-off balances.

One further point: Wong Chuk Hang itself has transformed in recent years from a traditional industrial district into an up-and-coming area on the south side of Hong Kong Island, riding on the South Island Line and an influx of office towers and art spaces. It is also worth noting that Lady Ho Tung Hall moved in 2001 into the Jockey Club Student Village in the Pokfulam area, not the one at Wong Chuk Hang — the two sites share the "Jockey Club Student Village" family name but are a substantial drive apart, and readers should not mistake successive Jockey Club student villages for incremental expansions of a single physical site. For the institutional differences between HKU's residential colleges and traditional halls, and the wider genealogy of the hall system, see A General Guide to the HKU Hall System.

# FAQ

# When did JCSV IV at Wong Chuk Hang open?

The official opening ceremony was held on 3 April 2025^※. But the building itself was completed earlier — Q3 2023 per CIC records^※ — and D.H. Chen College had already begun operating in September 2023^※. Roughly a year and a half separated physical completion from the official inauguration, and the four colleges were not delivered and occupied on the same day.

# How much more do JCSV IV fees cost than JCSV III?

Per HKU's official 2026–27 lodging fee schedule^※, a single room in a JCSV IV residential college costs HK$51,215 per term (two terms per year); the equivalent room at JCSV III is HK$40,800. The former is about 25.5% higher.

# Are non-local students really "guaranteed" accommodation?

No hard guarantee exists. CEDARS states plainly: "Places in HKU residences are limited and not guaranteed."^※ What actually exists is a rental allowance scheme for first- and second-year students who fail to secure a hall place^※, reimbursing up to HK$2,000 per month and HK$20,000 per year.

# Which of the four colleges takes postgraduates only?

College 2 (also styled JCSV IV College II)^※ is officially positioned as HKU's largest postgraduate residential college. The other three — College 1, D.H. Chen College and Karson Choi College — primarily serve undergraduates according to publicly available information.

# Further reading

• Jockey Club Student Village III: The Four Residential Colleges — HKU's first residential college model; the core comparison for this article
• A General Guide to the HKU Hall System — a panorama of HKU's residential system and the institutional divide between traditional halls and residential colleges
• Lady Ho Tung Hall: HKU's Only Hall for Women — another case of a hall moving into a Jockey Club student village in 2001; a different location from Wong Chuk Hang
• University Hall: Castle, Copper Staircase and a Century of Brotherhood — a comparison case for the traditional halls' "building first, name later" naming logic