HAVING just completed renovations to his three-room flat in Ang Mo Kio Avenue 10, Mr Jackson Wee was reluctant to take up a Housing Board offer to make changes to his interior.

But he had a change of heart after seeing the work done in flats in other precincts.

‘I was so surprised – it was done so nicely, the quality was so good. So I changed my mind,’ he said.

That was back in 2003.

Yesterday, the 63-year-old technical engineer was among 600 residents at a dinner to celebrate the completion of the Main Upgrading Programme (MUP) for 10 blocks in Ang Mo Kio Avenue 10: Blocks 411 to 419 and 421.

Celebrating with them was Mr Lee Hsien Loong, MP for Teck Ghee ward in Ang Mo Kio GRC.

Pointing to the improvements made, he said it reflects a system that works in Singapore.

‘People support the Government, the Government works for the people. We work together to have (Budget) surpluses, and from the surpluses we give back something to Singaporeans.’

Mr Lee made the promise that more would be done for housing estates in Singapore.

‘We will have new plans to improve our estates, to build up Singapore,’ he said, without elaborating.

‘This is a continuous process because we never finish saying how we can make Singapore a better place to live,’ he added.

The upgrading of Mr Wee’s precinct and the 10 blocks in it cost $55 million. The Government paid the bulk of the bill.

It gave the precinct landscaped seating areas, a shady pedestrian boulevard, and covered linkways, among other amenities. The street soccer court was also upgraded.

Mr Wee said that the new amenities downstairs have changed the entire feel of the estate: ‘In the evenings now, you can see a lot of old residents going downstairs, taking walks.

‘Before, nobody went down.’

Within their homes, owners got new windows and new decorative timber doors. Toilets were upgraded, and many residents also opted to add an extra utility room to their flat.

Mr Wee, a Christian, turned the additional space into his prayer room, which he also uses occasionally as a guest room for relatives and friends.

Earlier in the evening, at a nearby estate, Mr Lee launched the polling and exhibition of a proposed Lift Upgrading Programme for 13 blocks in Ang Mo Kio Avenue 10.

The project would upgrade lifts in Blocks 464 to 476. Residents will have to decide whether to go ahead with the project by Monday.

The Lift Upgrading Programme will go ahead if at least 75 per cent of them vote for it.

Up to 85 per cent of the cost will be covered by the Government, and residents have the option to pay their share via monthly instalments over five or 10 years.

Housewife Kamisah Amat was so keen she cast her ‘yes’ vote almost immediately after the polling started yesterday evening.

The 50-year-old, who has lived in Block 471 since 2004, said she ‘has been waiting for the lift upgrading for very long’.

Source, Straits Times 22 January 2010

I REFER to the letters by Miss Yvon Lim (‘How realistic is $8,000 income ceiling for flats?’, Jan 6); Mr Glenn Ng (‘Buyer’s appeal’, Jan 12); Mr Joseph Ong (‘It limits price hikes’, Jan 12); and Mr Xavier Chua (‘Flats: Fairer formula for income ceiling’, Jan 14).

We need to manage our public housing budget judiciously. The income ceiling ensures that housing subsidies are targeted at those who need them more. The eligibility for housing subsidies extends up to a monthly income of $10,000, not $8,000. Those earning between $8,000 and $10,000 are eligible for a $30,000 grant to buy executive condominiums (ECs).

They should not compete with those earning less than $8,000 for new HDB flats.

For the same reason, income ceilings are set at $3,000 for three-room flats and $2,000 for two-room flats to safeguard these smaller HDB flats for the lower-income. HDB has recently released two new sites for EC development.

Besides ECs, households with a monthly income of $8,000 to $10,000 can buy a resale flat for which there is a wide range in various locations to suit different budgets and preferences. For instance, a family that earns $9,000 can consider the following:

A five-room resale flat in a non-mature estate. The average price for a flat in a non-mature estate is about $380,000, and estimated monthly instalments are about $1,574, which can be fully paid from Central Provident Fund (CPF) savings.

A five-room resale flat in a mature estate. For example, the median price for a resale flat in Queenstown is about $619,000. The estimated monthly instalments are about $2,564, which can be paid mostly from CPF savings, and supplemented with a cash payment of $494.

As these examples show, flat buyers earning above $8,000 a month can comfortably afford HDB flats, but they will have to make trade-offs between price, size, attributes and location.

Lily Chan-Wong Jee Choo (Mrs)
Deputy Director (Policy and Property)
Housing & Development Board

Source, Straits Times 22 January 2010