more than investment of private capital for profit, since it is backed by the Federal and Colonial Housing Building Society, which is an agency of the Colonial Development Corpora- tion, which in turn is an agency of the British Government. Thirdly, this investment is something entirely new and admirable in housing deve- lopment in Singapore, both in scale and conception.
None of the building sites in this estate will be sold as sites, thus keep- ing out the land speculator. None of the houses will be sold to large investors. None will be sold for letting. Each house will be sold at a price varying from $8,000.00 to $24,000.00, and a person who cannot put down that amount will be able to buy his house with the aid of the Federal and Colonial Building Society on payment of $85 a month, or there- abouts, over a period of fifteen years. That, in many cases, will be no more than is being paid in rent at present -and there will be none of that abominable but inescapable form of squeeze called tea-money. The lower- paid office workers and manual work- ers will not be able to afford even these terms, but employees in the $350-to-$800 salary range will be able to do so. There will be no road charges for individual buyers. All roads will be made up according to Municipal specifications and taken over by the Municipal Commissioners. Each house will have electricity, water and modern sanitation-but the extension of the sewers will have to wait until the Municipality can under- take the work. Finally, when the last instalment has been paid, the owner will get a freehold title.
As now planned, with 1,300 houses of three bedrooms each, this estate will comfortably accommodate eight to nine thousand people. The Im- provement Trust asked for twenty thousand. But that could only be done by building great blocks of flats, thus changing the whole character and purpose of the scheme. Indeed, it would have made the scheme im- possible, because the Building Society would not then have agreed to finance it, it being the whole purpose of this scciety to encourage home ownership. In any case, the people who have ap- plied for these houses do not want to buy a flat or to rent a flat. They want a little house cf their own, with a bit of garden around it, and a quiet road in front. Even if part of the iand were used for houses and part for fiats a compromise that was sug- gested the result would be to spoil the estate for the house-dwellers, since it would create a density of traffic and people such as is now seen at Tiong Bahru."
The development will
compries
adroom
15
Front elevation of the "F" Type terrace house.
Dining
Verandah
Loun
Verandah
Kitcher
Ground floor plan.
Bath
Barh
Bedream 2
datroom
First floor plan.
several types of bungalows and two- storey terrace houses. Of the bunga- lows, some will be of three-bedroom type with servants' quarters, car porch or garage, and some will be semi-detached, containing two bed- rooms each with individual car porches. The two-storey terrace
62
Verandah.
1
houses will contain a lounge, dining room and kitchen on the ground floor with deep verandah also acting as porchway, with three bedrooms and one bathroom upstairs.
We hope to give further details including number of each type and costs in our next issue.