URBAN REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY BILL

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Order for Second Reading read.

The Minister for Law and National Development (Mr E. W. Barker): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Members of this House will recall that the President, at the opening of this session of Parliament last year, indicated in an addendum to his Speech that an Urban Redevelopment Authority would be established to implement a systematic programme of redevelopment of the Central area. The objective is to create a new and gracious city with better environment for business, residences as well as social activities. To achieve this aim, the upgrading of the present Urban Renewal Department to an independent Urban Redevelopment Authority with increased planning responsibilities and wider functions is necessary. Towards this end, this Bill is now before the House.

The Bill establishes the Urban Redevelopment Authority as a body corporate with a Board, consisting of a Chairman, a Deputy Chairman and at least three but not more than seven other members. The Authority is given the responsibility and power on all matters relating to urban redevelopment, including the clearance of land, development of land and management of buildings therein. The Bill therefore provides for the transfer to the Authority of all such lands, buildings and other properties belonging to Government and the Housing and Development Board, as the Minister may think fit. Provision is also made for the transfer to the Authority of every person employed by the Housing and Development Board in its Urban Renewal Department as well as such employees of the Government who are engaged in discharging the functions to be vested in the Authority on terms not less favourable than those they enjoyed immediately prior to the coming into operation of the Act.

The other provisions of the Bill are many, but I will draw the attention of Members to only some of the special features. The first of these is that the Authority, in addition to its main function of comprehensive planning of the Central area, is empowered to sell land to the private sector for development and to carry out any finance development on its own or in conjunction with the private sector. The Authority will, therefore, continue the series of urban renewal sales that have been so successful in promoting the participation of private entrepreneurs in our efforts to rebuild the city.

Secondly, the Authority with the approval of the Minister may declare certain areas as urban redevelopment areas and may acquire any land in the designated area within three years from the date of declaration, or for such extended periods as the Minister thinks fit, at market values prevailing at the date or dates of declaration. This provision will in effect freeze land and property prices and prevent land speculation in an area earmarked for urban redevelopment. It will also give the Authority sufficient time to carry out a survey and census of the area.

The third special feature confers upon the Authority the responsibility of controlling, developing and running car park facilities. The Authority will take over the Chief Planner's functions in the provision of car parks in new developments, and will in due course also take over the responsibilities of the existing Car Parks Division. The main objective is to reduce over a period of time kerb-side parking, which tends to obstruct the traffic flow, so that streets will be freed for their right vehicular use and traffic congestion thereby relieved. It is intended to build multi-storey car parks at strategic locations.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

2.37 p.m.

Mr Ong Teng Cheong (Kim Keat): Mr Speaker, Sir, I welcome and support the Bill in principle, which no doubt will enable many of our urban redevelopment schemes to be more effectively implemented. However, there is one aspect of the Bill which I would like to comment, and that is, Part VIII of the Bill which deals with the regulating and controlling functions of the Authority. Part VIII of the Bill requires that every person who wishes to develop any land shall submit to the Authority proposals and plans for the provision of car parks and car parking spaces before applying to the competent authority under the provisions of the Planning Act for permission to develop such land. I feel that this is putting the cart before the horse, since the provision of car parking spaces is dependent upon the use and intensity of any proposed development which may be permitted by the Chief Planner. Besides, this regulatory function is not explicitly stated either in Part IV of the Bill or in the Schedule to the Bill, which deals with the powers and functions of the Authority. I wonder whether this is a deliberate omission, or whether Part VIII of the Bill is an afterthought or a subsequent hasty addition.

I have no doubt the House will agree that there could be a basic conflict of interest if the Urban Redevelopment Authority, whose main functions and duties are to prepare and execute proposals and to sell and manage properties, etc., is also empowered to perform regulatory and enforcement functions as well. Although such function is only in respect of car park provision, it is to be realised that such a provision is normally an integral part of any land or building development. Unless there is a very good reason for this new Authority to discharge such regulatory function, I would like to see this function continue to be the function of a regulatory and enforcement agency, such as the Planning Department or the Building Control Division of the PWD. If the object of this particular Part of the Bill is to enable the Authority to finance and develop multi-storey garages in the Central area, then I think there are other more appropriate means of achieving the same objective. Besides, it should be recognised that car parking is an important element of comprehensive land use and transportation policy, and it would be unwise to consider car parking policy in isolation, particularly at this present moment when a decision on a mass rapid transit system is still pending and that the bus services in the Republic is due for reorganisation again soon.

I therefore wish to suggest, for the consideration of the Minister and the House, that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee for consideration, as I feel that the implementation of this Bill, particularly Part VIII of the Bill, is more far-reaching than it appears to he.

Mr L. P. Rodrigo (Serangoon Gardens): Mr Speaker, Sir, may I say immediately that I support this Bill, and I think it has come fairly promptly considering the fact that the decision for urban renewal to go corporate was taken only last year.

It does not require much scrutiny to grasp the significance of this Authority which is to be established through this Bill. Going through Part IV of the Bill and recalling the experience and achievements of the Urban Renewal Department of the Housing and Development Board, its approach to the problem of resettling hawkers notwithstanding, one quickly sees that this Authority will determine the physical and social structuring of redevelopment in the urban areas. To the credit of the Urban Renewal Department, it may be said that the Department is already responsible for the impressive manner in which the city's skyline is shaping.

One obvious merit in having such an Authority is that, being an autonomous body and operating on its own commercial viability, it will escape the stringency of governmental constraints most of which usually emanate from the Treasury and allows urban redevelopment to take on some acceleration and quality. In my view the physical planning for urban redevelopment should be based upon an in-depth and long-range study of our physical, social and cultural needs as individuals, as primary groups, and as a society. Such a project study calls for a coherent vision of the kind of urban life we should have and can have.

I have learnt that in May 1970 the Urban Renewal Department began a project to prepare and evaluate a detailed plan for the Central area based on the State and City Planning Concept Plan for 1992. This Sub-Project which is being prepared with the assistance of United Nations consultants under the United Nations Development Programme is not completed. It claims to entail problems of distribution of land uses in the Central area, road and traffic systems, land floor space intensities, open space, car parking needs and other related problems.

I do not know to what extent the State and City Planning Concept Plan for 1992, on which the Sub-Project is based, is now or will soon be irrelevant or obsolete in the light of subsequent policy decisions on the Mass Rapid Transit System and other major decisions relating to the physical, social and cultural patterns of urban living. I should think that some obsolescence already exists. Building construction technologies are advancing rapidly. New techniques are available making what were bold concepts a few years ago a practical proposition today.

In this regard, I wish to make the suggestion that the Urban Redevelopment Authority give due consideration to the feasibility of creating extensive space below ground level. To-date, the creation of space underground has been limited to making provision for the parking of cars and basement facilities in that building. I feel there is scope for a dynamic exploitation and manipulation of space below ground through the construction of passageways, offices, shopping and social centres. The idea of getting pedestrians off the streets and above the roads along passageways is already accepted and has been incorporated into the physical planning of some urban renewal projects. We should now consider doing likewise below the roads. If we begin to look at the feasibility of the proposition and its problems at this stage we will have the advantage of being able to co-ordinate the planning for underground urban redevelopment with the Mass Rapid Transit System project (especially if such a system uses subways in the Central area) and with the siting of future multi-storey buildings, and piling for which must necessarily sink some distance into the ground. In any case, the need to take urban redevelopment below ground level should be increasingly compelling as space and land become more scarce and expensive at ground level.

I note, Sir, that the Urban Redevelopment Authority will also undertake public housing schemes in the Central area, and thus in the totality of its functions and duties, this Authority will be responsible for shaping the style of urban life in our city in the future years. People respond according to the extent of the liberation of or restriction on themselves as determined by the physical environment. Such responses, when sustained, develop into a style of life with its particular modes and mores and we get the society which our environment produces.

There are ample studies to show us that planning for urban living must take account of one critical consideration, and that is provision for meaningful contact between people. The physical planning for urban redevelopment, in my view, must ensure what may be called the optimum environment which sustains the mechanism for meaningful human contact between persons, and persons in the primary groups, that is, the family, the children's play group and the adult group through adequate housing and effective social and cultural meeting places.

Planning must provide the opportunities for people to establish meaningful contact as persons and not meeting each other in their various role-relationships. A fact of urban dwelling is that a person has numerous contacts with other people every day, but he is still a lonely person at the end of the day. These contacts are superficial and meaningless. In urban life, the manifold needs of a person are easily available. He secures all these needs with money. He thus experiences an autonomy of his person. Stress in urban life and the absence of meaningful human contacts force him to withdraw. His autonomy allows him to sustain this withdrawal from society and he is soon alienated. This is referred to as the autonomy withdrawal syndrome by the experts. If this process occurs on a large scale, we may soon find ourselves beset with the huge problem of resolving social pathologies like delinquency, drug addiction, crime and schizophrenia. Such alienated people create for themselves a way of life which has been determined by their environment.

It is fortunate for us that at this stage of our growth we are able to study the adversities of urban crises in the major cities in various parts of the world, and to some extent identify the causes of these crises. We should benefit from the study and recognise the miseries experienced by urban dwellers in these cities.

Hence, any physical planning for urban redevelopment should be based on a substantive long-range study which has identified the kind of urban life we should have, co-ordinated with major projects such as the Mass Rapid Transit System and incorporate new technologies and techniques to construct the optimum environment for a healthy, peaceful and productive urban society.

By way of conclusion, I wish to observe that clauses 17 and 18 of the Bill, as has been pointed out by the Minister, indeed vest considerable powers in the Authority. The clauses concerned empower the Authority, with the approval of the Minister, to freeze land for three years or more for the purpose of urban redevelopment, if the Authority so decides. While I understand the need for such powers, if the Authority is to be able to plan ahead and make suitable feasibility studies of various redevelopment projects, I would like nevertheless to make the point that, first, these provisions should be utilised only after reasonable certainty is established in the overall urban redevelopment planning of the need for the land for urban redevelopment. Secondly, that the owner or owners of such lands be given the choice of developing the land in question in the manner planned for by the Authority for the purposes of redevelopment. Finally, I wholeheartedly support the hon. Member for his suggestion to commit this Bill to a Select Committee.

Mr Ong Teng Cheong: Mr Speaker, Sir, if I may just supplement what I have mentioned earlier. I hope the Minister would consider the possibility of setting up a special committee, as a matter of urgency, to study and formulate a comprehensive transportation policy and strategy for the Republic, in conjunction with the Ministry of Communications and other relevant statutory bodies, to guide the provision, distribution, and management of car parking facilities in the Central area. I appreciate his concern over the present traffic and parking situation in the Central area as reflected in Part VIII of the Bill.

Mr Barker: Mr Speaker, Sir, after that long lecture on urban redevelopment from the Member for Serangoon Gardens, I do not think I need add much further to my speech. At this stage also, I do not propose to answer any of the criticisms or queries of either Member, because I accept their suggestion to commit this Bill to a Select Committee.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Resolved,

"That the Urban Redevelopment Authority Bill be committed to a Select Committee consisting of Mr Speaker as Chairman, and the following seven Members:

Mr Ivan Baptist (Potong Pasir)

Mr E. W. Barker (Tanglin)

Mr N. Govindasamy (Telok Blangah)

Mr Hwang Soo Jin (Jalan Kayu)

Mr Ong Teng Cheong (Kim Keat)

Mr L. P. Rodrigo (Serangoon Gardens)

Dr Tan Eng Liang (River Valley)."--[Mr Barker],