No delay in upgrading or building: Mah

Source : Today - 7 Nov 2008

Minister reassures that public housing projects will proceed

THERE is no need to fear that the economic slowdown will be felt in our public housing projects.

Giving his reassurances last night in response to questions, National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said: “There is no delay in our public housing programme, our building programme and in our upgrading programme.

“We know there is demand for public housing. We are building something like 8,000 units. Demand is still very strong. Similarly upgrading … is something our HDB residents are looking forward to. Lift upgrading, we’ve set a deadline for it. We’ve promised by 2014 that all the eligible flats will be upgraded.”

As for the Home Improvement Programme and neighbourhood renewal programmes, “we’re going to proceed as originally planned, so there’s no delay,” said Mr Mah.

He was speaking to reporters after chairing a public forum on enhancing Singapore’s physical environment.

With regard to its land sale programme, why did the Government decide to move most of the remaining sites on the Confirmed List for the rest of this year to the Reserved List?

This, said Mr Mah, was because of the uncertainty in the market. “I think it was important to let the market, the developers, take some time off to look at the market and to see how they need to respond.”

He also noted that these sites were not completely off the table and if any party was interested in bidding, then the site would go up for public tender. “Putting it on the Reserve List allows the market to determine whether they want the site and whether they areprepared to pay for the site.”

As for criticism from some quarters about moving sites off the confirmed list, Mr Mah said: “Every move we make, somebody has comments - some people think it’s too early, some people too late.

“We make our judgment based on what we think is good and help stabilise the market which is in the interest of Singapore.”

On developers calling for the deferred payment scheme to be reinstated, Mr Mah said: “Well, we’ve just made this change and I think let’s take a look and see what the market is like. I think there’s a lot of uncertainty going on. I think it best for us to watch carefully before we start to make the next move.”