RENTAL FLATS (Age requirement)

Mr S. Vasoo asked the Minister for National Development (a) whether the imposition of the age requirement of 29 years will affect the demand of and create problems for those who need rental flats; (b) what are the Housing and Development Board's future plans on these rental flat vacancies; and (c) whether the waitingperiod for rental flats will be shortened.

The Minister for National Development (Mr Teh Cheang Wan): Mr Speaker, Sir, the imposition of the age requirement of 29 years should reduce the demand for rental flats. However, it will not create problems for those who need them, such as those affected by resettlement or facing genuine hardship. These cases are exempted from the age requirement.

The HDB has a programme to redevelop the rental blocks which have been vacated by existing tenants. Under this programme, flats which are vacated by existing tenants will not be reallocated. When more than half of the flats have been vacated, the remaining tenants will be decanted to either home ownership flats or other rental flats. The blocks will then be demolished and the site subsequently redeveloped.

Because of the redevelopment programme, many of the vacated flats will not be available for rental. Hence the waiting period for rental flats is not expected to be shortened.

Mr S. Vasoo (Bo Wen): Sir, is the Minister aware that the age requirement causes increasing overcrowding in families of one and two-room flats and whether he will be prepared to waive on a case by case basis, based on pressing problems of such families also?

Mr Teh Cheang Wan: Mr Speaker, Sir, as I have stated in the House earlier, young people between the age of 21 and 28, have another 20, 30 or even more years of working life. So this group of Singaporeans should be encouraged to become home owners and not be easily provided with rental flats and become entrenched in the rental flats. This will be bad for them and bad for the family.

Mr Jeyaretnam: Is the Minister seriously saying that the policy of the HDB is to keep all rental flats vacated vacant and deny, I do not know how many hundreds, it might be running into thousands, applications for rental flats. What do you expect these people who have applied for rental flats to do?

Mr Teh Cheang Wan: Mr Speaker, Sir, for those who apply for rental flats who are above 29 years old, they will be allocated a rental flat. I did not say HDB will keep all the rental flats vacant - I said HDB has a redevelopment programme for the rental flats and that does not cover all the rental flats. In other words, rental flats will continue to be available to those who are qualified to apply for rental flats.