KALLANG ESTATE HOUSING BOARD FLATS (Dissatisfaction of tenants over rentals)

Mr David Marshall asked the Minister for National Development whether he is aware of any dissatisfaction, in respect of rental, by the tenants of the Housing Board flats at Kallang Estate and whether he would make a statement on the matter.

Mr Tan Kia Gan: Mr Speaker, Sir, I am aware that there has been some dissatisfaction from new tenants who moved into the Housing Board flats at Kallang E-state after 16th March, 1961, when the Housing and Development Board introduced rationalised rentals for this Estate. A group of 28 tenants out of some 2,840 tenants in this Estate made representations that they be allowed to pay the old rents of $25, $35 and $45 to $55 for one, two and three-room units respectively at Kallang Estate.

These old rentals were fixed by the previous Government and resulted in the Housing and Development Board having to meet a loss of approximately $1.5 million annually in respect of less than 3,000 units in the Kallang Estate. It would seem that these rentals were fixed with undue haste in 1958, with an eye to the general elections. The Housing and Development Board, as a nonprofit making statutory undertaking charged with the responsibility for the provision of public housing accommodation in the State, will have to depend on the Government to meet the deficit, and steps to rationalise rents have been taken in the public interest in order to reduce progressively the subsidy which has to be met from public funds.

The new rents of $40, $60, and $75 for one, two and three-room units are payable only by new tenants who moved in fully aware of what they were required to pay. It should be pointed out that even these rents are well below the economic rents payable if the Housing and Development Board were to let them out without suffering too much of a deficit. I would stress that the existing tenants who moved into the Estate before 16th March, 1961, are continuing to pay the former rentals of $25, $35 and $45-$55 per month for one, two and three-room units, and these tenants number some 2,620. Those new tenants who entered into their tenancy agreements after March 1961 to occupy the flats with full knowledge of the new revised rentals they were required to pay had moved in on a voluntary basis, and I do not see the necessity or justification to take any steps to vary the rentals for which they had individually contracted to pay to the Housing and Development Board.