A primary characteristic of the URA plan is the relationship between the present CBD (which is in the South-Central region [?]) and the other four regions. Each of these four regions will have a Regional Centre [?] as its largest settlement. Each Regional Centre will be about fifteen times the size of a present-day HDB town centre. They will each serve 800000 people, and are second in size and function only to the CBD.

The purpose of such a heirarchy is twofold. First, it is hoped to relieve pressure on the services provided currently only by the CBD. Second, it is envisaged that sources of employment will be brought closer to people's homes.

Public housing in Singapore has undergone several phases. Post-war public housing in Singapore initially came under the purview of the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT), which was formed in 1927. Most of the SIT's pre-war activities consisted of efforts to improve the City area by laying out and improving roads and open spaces, condemning unsuitable buildings, opening up back-lanes to improve sanitation and ventilation, and developing quarters for resettled persons. Increasing the new housing stock was not one of its priorities.

As a result, living conditions in Chinatown particularly were appalling. Not only was the housing stock physically deteriorating, but the two- and three-storey shophouses had, since the mid-nineteenth century, been partitioned and re-partitioned into ever smaller cubicles. These cubicles averaged about ten square metres in size, and with one or more families packed into this space, people only had just enough room to lie down and store their possessions in a small chest.

When it was impossible to partition the cubicles any further, people erected make-shift structures in air-wells, back-lanes and even on rooftops. Some were forced to move further away, to the fringes of the Core area, where tightly packed squatter settlements [?] were springing up. The latter had a total population of at least a hundred thousand immediately post-war.

The report of the Housing Committee of 1947 revealed that about a third of the island's population of approximately one million was living in only about four hundred hectares. Remember, this was before the days of high-rise housing!

Furthermore, the report's description of the housing conditions of the squatters could be equally applicable to the situation facing squatter settlements in many parts of the Third World even today:

"These people live in huts made of attap, old boxes, rusty corrugated iron, with no sanitation, water or any elementary health requirements. It is a literal and physical impossibility to eject these people, as they have nowhere else to go, and cannot be crammed back into the slums from which they have escaped. In the meantime they constitute a menace to the health not only to their own localities but to the whole city, in the event of an outbreak of disease."

An example of the SIT's better attempts at providing public housing is shown above.

The HDB was set up in February 1960 to take over the SIT's duties. Its main aim during the early sixties was to provide basic standards of housing for the thousands of people then living in squatter settlements in Singapore.

The selection of sites for the first public housing estates was confined within a ten kilometre radius of the General Post Office because planners assumed that the bulk of the populace would continue to seek employment near the core. This assumption also permitted the HDB to concentrate on the primary problem of providing basic shelter without having to also devote substantial resources to creating jobs and amenities. Between 1960 and 1965, only flats of three rooms or fewer were built.

In the late sixties, large estates which housed more than 180000 people were developed, of which Toa Payoh was the first. At this time, about thirty-five percent of the population was living in HDB flats. Much of this new development took place in the wedges between the main traffic arteries. This meant that the estates were concentrated in belts radiating out from the CBD.

The seventies saw larger and better designed flats, with more facilities and a greater variety of housing layouts. These were situated well beyond the traditional 'heart' of Singapore. One of the most important reasons for this was that as the last of the urban fringe squatter colonies disappeared, it became expensive to obtain suitable new sites. Further development of public housing in the City would require the demolition of existing urban slums. This would be much more costly than clearing flimsy, illegal squatter settlements.

Second, there were too many people still awaiting resettlement for everyone to be accomodated near the Central core. Third, as plans for modernizing and restructuring the national economy gained momentum, there was a pressing need to rationalize the use of Singapore's limited land area.

Housing estates built since the seventies have begun to acquire their own distinct identities, and some, like Pasir Ris and Bukit Batok are even designed to blend with existing features.

Estates built before July 1972 will be upgraded. Upgrading is carried out within the flat, in the common areas outside the flat, and in the areas outside the apartment block. Owners are consulted through exhibtions and polls before upgrading is implemented. The cost of upgrading is borne by both the HDB and the owners. The amount paid by the latter does not exceed twenty-five percent, depending on the extent of the programme and the size of the flat.

A scheme which was started in 1991 is that of 'Design-and-Build', where private architectural firms, contractors and engineering firms team up to submit their design and bid for the contract. This is opposed to the more common approach of the HDB calling for contractors' tenders only after the flats have been designed.

'Design-and-Build' has proved so successful that recently, the HDB announced a new type of flat called 'Design Plus'. These boast co-ordinated tiles and sanitary fixtures. 'Design-and-Build', on the other hand, have features such as circular balconies and modern waste disposal systems, where refuse is sucked into a central collection point. Both types of flats have floor-to-ceiling windows and basement carparks linked to every block.

Further comparing 'Design-and-Build' with 'Design Plus', the former are sold for at least a thirty percent premium, compared to the ten to seventeen percent premium which 'Design Plus' flats command. Examples of examples of both types of blocks will be found in Choa Chu Kang. 'Design-and-Build' will also be found at Tampines and Bedok. Nevertheless, only about ten percent of the HDB's building programme consists of 'Design-and-Build', because it is more labour [?] intensive and logistically demanding. 'Design Plus' flats will take up a similar proportion.

In an effort to address the desire of Singaporeans to own private property, executive condominiums (initially at Jurong East, Pasir Ris, Bukit Panjang, Choa Chu Kang, Ang Mo Kio, Bedok and Simei) will be built. These will include facilities like swimming pools and tennis courts, and will be built by government-linked companies. Prices will be up to twenty percent lower than private properties of comparable sizes.

Those who buy executive condominiums will be barred from buying flats from the HDB direct again and have to occupy them for five years before they can sell to Singaporeans. After ten years, the ownership restriction will be lifted. The quality of finishes will be comparable to medium-priced private condominiums.

Source: The Straits Times

Singapore's first waterfront housing will be private housing. Built on the seven Southern Islands of Sentosa, Pulau Tekukor, Kusu Island, Sisters' Island, St John's Island and the soon-to-be-merged Pulau Seringat/Lazarus Island, the units will be set alongside canals which will lace the estate. Up to six metres wide and three storeys high, five hundred of these unique houses will be built early in the next century. These houses and seven hundred flats will form a project overseen by the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board (STPB). No vehicular traffic, except for trams and carts, will be allowed in the estate.

Most recently, it was announced that Punggol will be a model for contemporary public housing in the twenty-first century. By 2010, it will have a mix of housing types, namely private (including eight thousand executive condominiums) and public on a ratio of 2:3, compared to the present nationwide figure of 3:17 and the projected figure of 5:15 by 2010. The public housing will be grouped into six to eight smaller, distinctly-designed 'neighbourhood clusters' - each containing between 1200 and 2800 units (instead of the typical neighbourhood size of five to six thousand units) and enjoying a common neighbourhood green, schools, places of worship, clubs and libraries. A third each of the public housing will be 'Design Plus' and 'Design-and-Build'. In order to create a pedestrian-friendly neighbourhood, the carparks will be at 'half-basement' level. These eighty-six thousand units, spread over 957 hectares, will be homes for 300000 people. Eighty-five percent of the housing will be high-density condominiums and public housing, thirteen percent medium-density waterfront housing, with the remainder low-density landed homes or walk-up apartments.

The ultimate aim is to double high-density housing to about 1.1 million units. At the same time, low- and medium-density housing will treble to about 460000 units and will make up thirty percent of all housing, up from its present seventeen percent. So by Year X, housing will effectively have doubled, even though population would have increased by only a third.

Singaporeans will also have more living space. At present, each person has about twenty square metres - equivalent to a family of four living in a three-room flat. Over time, we will enjoy as much as thirty-five square metres, as if that same family were now living in a five-room flat. By then, we would certainly have come a long way since the bad old shophouse days of the mid-nineteenth century.

The four Regional Centres [?] will be Jurong East (chosen for its existing industrial base and its proximity to the second link to Johor), Woodlands (chosen for its proximity to the 1.1 km Causeway to Johor (built in 1923)), Seletar (chosen for its existing aviation industry) and Tampines (chosen for its proximity to Changi Airport, as well as to the ferry links to the Riau Archipelago).