January_1970 — Page 28

The Government has decided that in the Third Five-Year Plan, the con- struction of public housing should be substantially accelerated and the target figure will be 100,000 units in five years. The rate of construction of housing in Singapore by both public and private enterprises in future is quite likely to reach the figure of 24,000 units per annum or 12 units per thousand population.

This rate of construction is not only going to be among the highest in Asia, but also well above the rate of most of the developed countries in both Europe and America.

Design of the estates

Housing estates constructed by the Board are located within the 5-mile perimeter of the city to enable the travelling time spent by the residents to and from the city centre to be less than an hour and the bus fare less than 50 cents.

The layout of the estates is based on the neighbourhood principle where the market, hawkers and shopping centres, primary and secondary schools are part of the neighbourhood and within walking distance of the housing. In addition to the shopping facilities and schools, other communal amenities such as clinics, community centre, fully equipped children's play- ground and open spaces are provided within the neighbourhood to serve the residents.

Each neighbourhood usually com- prises between 2,000 to 5,000 flats and where more than three neighbour- hoods are planned together, a town centre or a district centre is also built to provide facilities such as post office, banks, theatres and department stores to supplement the facilities in the neighbourhood.

In line with the Government's policy of building up a rugged society, sports complexes with swimming pools, running tracks, football fields will also become a permanent feature in the housing estates.

Type of flats

In the first Five-Year Plan, three standard types of one-, two- and three- room flats are provided at the ratio of 40% 30% 30%. The floor area of a one-room flat is 230 sq.ft., a two-room flat 425 sq.ft., and three-room flat about 550 sq.ft. All these flats are provided with self-contained kitchen, bathroom and WC and served with piped water supply, electricity, gas and waterborne sewerage system.

The rental of the flats has been

pegged by the Government at S$20 for a one-room unit, S$40 for two-room, and S$60 for three-room. In our second Five-Year Plan, one-room im- proved flats of about 310 sq.ft have been introduced at a rental of S$30 to substitute for the standard one-room flats and three-room improved flats of about 680 sq.ft. have also been intro- duced to supplement the three-room standard flats to be sold to the public at $$7,500 per unit.

In future years, larger flats will be introduced to improve the standard of living and to meet the rising expecta- tions of our people. In the third Five- Year Plan, four-room flats with a floor area of about 1,000 sq.ft. will be introduced into the public housing.

Rental and selling prices

The rental of the flats was fixed by the Government in 1960 at the level where the family is expected not to pay more than 20% of their income towards rental. From the recent survey conducted by the Economic Research Centre of the University of Singapore, the average family pays about 15% of its income towards rental.

During the second Five-Year Plan, the Government introduced the "Home Ownership Scheme" with the view that eventually all the residents who stay in the flats will also own the flats. The selling prices of the flats has been purposely pegged by the Govern- ment at such a low level that the majority of citizens are in a position to buy their flats.

One-room improved flats of 310 sq.ft. have been sold at S$3,300 per unit, two-room flats of 425 sq.ft. at S$4,900 per unit, three-room standard flats of 550 sq.ft. at S$6,200 per unit and three-room improved flats of 680 sq.ft. at S$7,500 per unit. From our survey, the prices of the flats are ap- proximately equivalent to between 18 months to 2 years of the income of the people and this figure is among the lowest in the world.

The low rental and low selling prices of public housing is a deliberate Government policy of improving the standard of living of the people. Al- though the income of the people in Singapore is not high compared with the developing countries in Europe, the low cost housing, the almost free education and the heavily subsidized medical services enable our people to live very much better than their income indicates.

Ten to 20 per cent of the land within the housing estates is set aside for clean and labour intensive indus-

tries. This new development of locat- ing the industries within the housing estates will bring about basic changes in the employment pattern of re- sidents and bring the job to almost the door step of our tenant.

The income of tenants is expected to improve as more jobs become avail- able; time and cost in travelling to and from the place of work will also be saved.

Urban renewal

Singapore is also one of the first Asian countries to embark on a com- prehensive urban renewal programme. Although in the Singapore Master Plan of 1957, there is provision for the renewal of the central area by stages, little physical work was actually un- dertaken before the formation of the Housing Board in 1960.

After the public housing pro- gramme was successfully launched in 1960, the Singapore Government re- quested the assistance of United Nations' experts in studying urban re- newal and making recommendations for its implementation.

Based on the findings of the United Nations' experts and our own ex- perience in development, an Urban Renewal Department was established and staffed by Singapore architects and planners. Unlike public housing, the Urban Renewal Programme is a joint endeavour on the part of both public and private enterprises.

The role of the Government in urban renewal will be to provide the initiative, the expertise and the favour-

26

Far East BUILDER, January 1970