Lost neighbourliness

Source : Straits Times - 26 Aug 2008

Residents, suspicious of each other, keep away from estate functions

NEIGHBOURLINESS has evaporated at Laguna Park, the East Coast condominium now split by the prospects of a collective sale.

The turnout at a food festival held in the estate on Aug 17 was bad, never mind that the residents’ association had splurged $10,000 on getting professionals to plan it.

Not so long ago, the residents used to enjoy events like these, and bashes during Hari Raya Puasa and Deepavali were popular. Now, the residents’ association is thinking twice about holding a do for next month’s Mooncake Festival.

Long-time resident Michael Tan, 68, who heads the residents’ association, said: ‘It’s very sad now. People keep to themselves and are suspicious of each other.’

The 530-unit seaside development made news when cars and mailboxes belonging to residents opposed to the collective sale of the development were vandalised. At least eight cars were sprayed with black paint or a corrosive liquid or scratched; last Wednesday, the keyholes of letter boxes were glued shut the third time in a month.

The estate needs to get an 80 per cent ‘yes’ vote by year’s end for the sale to go through. So far, it has got 65 per cent.

A property valuer reckons that an average unit could be worth more than $2.1 million in a collective sale, and the penthouses, almost $4 million.

A police spokesman said the acts of vandalism are still being investigated and advised residents to report suspicious characters to the police.

Security in the estate is contracted to Detec Security Services, which puts guards on duty between 8am and 8pm, during which they go on patrol every hour. This leaves the other 12 hours open for acts of mischief. The guards declined to comment, saying their boss was abroad.

Among the residents, some say life has been going on as usual, but most agree the atmosphere has changed.

One mother of two who has had her car and her letterbox vandalised twice now fears for her safety and that of her family. She now carries an umbrella around ‘just in case, this time, someone decides to throw acid on me instead of on the car’.

Even residents who are neither for nor against selling feel the heat. One said he has been getting poison pen letters in his mailbox from both sides, so ‘it’s like being caught in a war zone with two opposing camps’.

Even as the issue has torn neighbours apart, it has rallied those in the anti-sales camp, who have formed a loose ‘neighbourhood watch’ group.

The incidents at Laguna Park have sparked off an outcry and calls for the Law Ministry to amend the collective-sale rules to deal with vandalism.

A ministry spokesman said in reply that collective-sale laws were only the ‘framework’ for owners to decide whether to go ahead with the sale, and may not, by themselves ‘be able to change the behaviour of those intent on using illegal coercion’. Such law-breakers can, however, be dealt with under other legislation dealing with crimes.

For those in the anti-en bloc camp, these words are cold comfort. Their only hope is that an impending residents’ meeting will end with a ‘yes’ vote to install closed-circuit TV cameras.

A resident opposed to the collective sale said: ‘It used to be peaceful here. Look what it has become.’