The concepts of public interest hold important opportunities to achieve the goals of housing planning. In the paper I discuss four concepts of public interest in planning practice including puralist aggregation, economical analytical approach, the common interest approach and the good reasons approach. the purpose of the paper is to recommend housing planners how to apply to the concepts of public interest to adopt adequte housing policy alternatives. In planning process public interest may provide a basis for building consensus if the concept can be carefully defined and avoid being misused.