ISSUES ARISING FROM PUBLIC DEVELOPMENT WORK IN THE BUKIT TIMAH CONSTITUENCY

3.32 pm

Dr Wang Kai Yuen (Bukit Timah): Mr Speaker, Sir, in this Adjournment motion, I would like to address some issues and its related government policies arising from development work in the Bukit Timah Constituency. Where appropriate, I would like to make some suggestions for the consideration of the Minister. As concluding remarks, if time permits, I will also comment on the evolving attitudes of the Singaporeans, in particular the younger generation, towards resettlement and development projects in Singapore.

Mr Speaker, Sir, let me begin by giving you an idea of the coverage of the Bukit Timah Constituency. Consider the area bounded by the Upper Bukit Timah Road, Jalan Jurong Kechil, Jurong Town Hall Road, Ayer Rajah Road and Clementi Road. From this, take away the constituencies of West Coast, Clementi and Yuhua or part thereof, and what remains is Bukit Timah. There are several significant developments in this Constituency, such as the MRT Ulu Pandan Marshalling Yard, HDB Bukit Timah Estate, the construction of the Ulu Pandan arterial road and the URA development around the old Beauty World site. To carry out these new activities, the Government has to resettle the farmers, shopkeepers and demolish old buildings. Most of the problems encountered are not unique to Bukit Timah, and I am sure my fellow Members here are all too familiar with them, and I do not propose to go into those problems. Actually what I intend to raise falls into three categories as follows:

(1) Resettlement of farmers/residents around the Ulu Pandan Marshalling Yard.

(2) URA Development Plan at the old Beauty World site.

(3) PWD Road Development.

Let me begin with the first one. The land around Ulu Pandan incinerator plant, ie Lorong Senohong, Lorong Sakinat and Lorong Hakikit, was slated for resettlement back in the 1982-83 period. When the MRTC decided to site its marshalling yard for the Western end of its network at this location, the resettlement of the farmers in the area was accelerated. As usual, there were the normal problems. For instance, if a farmer is classified as being engaged in farming on the location site, the compensation is much higher. Therefore, everyone wants to be classified as farmers regardless of whether they are really doing farming or otherwise. Other problems include large families being resettled, unlicensed businesses on the site, or request for change of trades by the affected people concerned. What is different in this particular case of the Ulu Pandan incinerator plant is that since the area being resettled is fairly large, the land has been partitioned between two different Government agencies, the HDB and the JTC, according to the future use of the land. So it comes to pass that neighbours who are living next to one another, neighbours engaged in effectively the same activity and renting the same piece of land from the same landlord are being resettled by different authorities. One would expect that since the Government has only one resettlement policy, then there should be no difference whether the resident is being resettled by whichever agency, HDB or JTC. But in practice this is not so. For instance, if the resident is being resettled by JTC and his home is sited on the lot, these lots are repossessed on a with encumbrance basis. However, on the lot outside where they carry out farming activities, away from where their homes are sited, these lots are repossessed on a vacant possession basis. This is a very important classification. This means that, for those lots repossessed on vacant possession basis, the residents are not entitled to any compensation with regard to improvements on the land, such as fruit trees and other structures on the land. It seems to me that HDB, with their rich experience, has repossessed all lands on an encumberment basis. As a result, neighbours are treated differently. Of course, given a chance, landowners would definitely like to surrender their land to the Government on a vacant possession basis since their compensation would be much higher. But the impact on the tenancy farmers is very adverse. As far as the residents who are being resettled are concerned, both HDB and JTC are Government agencies. So to them it is hard to figure out what is the rationale, what is the basis for the different treatment they have received. This issue was raised way back in 1984 or even late 1983 by the residents involved. After many petitions to the JTC, including finally a meeting with the JTC, HDB and the residents concerned, in 1985, chaired by me, the matter was resolved. Out of eight persons six have their repossession status changed from "vacant possession" to "with encumberments". This is apparently because the landowner, in this case City Development, has been persuaded to accept the change. However, two of them are still awaiting good news till this day. And that is more than two years since the issue was first raised. From what I can gather, the landlord, in this case Toho Investment (Pte) Ltd, has not responded to the request by JTC to have their status changed. I hope by raising the matter in this House the resolution could be achieved expeditiously.

This is only one instance of the problems of resettlement on a vacant possession basis and its negative impact on the residents, with its accompanying impact on the Government. I am sure fellow honourable friends will recall many other examples where tenants had been deprived of their rights under the resettlement policy owing to their ignorance when the properties they rented had been surrendered to the Government by the landlord on a vacant possession basis. There must be quite a number of unhappy stories of persons being taken advantage of by landlords. In all these cases, these people have a tendency to seek redress from the Government and when they fail to do so they would blame the Government for their misfortune.

From this experience, Mr Speaker, Sir, I would like to draw two conclusions. Firstly, repossession on vacant possession basis should be agreed to by the Government with great reservations. In other words, the default option in all resettlement cases should be, where possible, resettlement with encumbrance basis. And whenever the issue of vacant possession is discussed, the tenants should be made aware of the pros and cons. Secondly, the whole repossession basis perhaps would be better coordinated by one single authority or one single agency. In the current mode, HDB, JTC and URA all carry out their own resettlement. Although I am sure that everybody uses the same rule book, but often times the end-results are quite different and people might get confused.

Another instance of resettlement problems is the URA programme at the Bukit Timah 7th Mile junction. In this case, most of the people affected are shopkeepers. These shopkeepers were badly affected when the population around the junction or around the site were cleared earlier. The HDB is presently building the Bukit Timah Estate at Toh Yi Drive. Before these shopkeepers can derive any benefit from the increased population, they again receive notice of their impending resettlement. So it turns out that these people have been unlucky twice as the neighbourhood is being developed. Once when the population moved out, and secondly, when the tide turns, they have to go. They have to give up their place of business. When they petitioned for a shop unit at the Bukit Timah Estate that HDB is building, they were turned down. It seems that some shopkeepers from outside the Constituency would be allocated those units which have been reserved for resettlement in the new Estate, while the local shopkeepers who are being resettled will have to move elsewhere. In the mind of these people who have been resettled, they feel that the reason for their failure to be considered for the new Estate is perhaps related to the fact that they were being resettled by URA while the new Estate is being built by HDB. I would urge the Minister to clarify this point, ie, regardless of whichever agency is carrying out the resettlement programme, the benefits due to the residents are the same.

While the URA has been quite diligent in the resettlement of the residents in the Bukit Timah 7th Mile area, they have not been as diligent when it comes to the disclosure of their development plan for the particular areas. The residents have no idea of what is being planned or proposed for the old Beauty World site and the current Bukit Timah Community Centre site. Even when questions were raised in Parliament by me, the answers by the Minister were very succinct and non-committal. I believe that Government should be more open with its development plan so that residents can make more intelligent decisions as to whether they should move in or move out from the neighbourhood. This is important since the resistance to another issue that I would like to bring up, ie, the road building project, is related by the residents as they claim that they are unaware of what are the future developments for that location when some of them made the decision to move into the constituency.

Now I would like to bring to your notice, Mr Speaker, Sir, the problems arising from the construction of the Ayer Rajah Expressway (AYE) and the Ulu Pandan arterial road. Let me touch on the AYE first and how it affects the residents of the Faber Hills Estate. If fellow Members will refer to the maps (Not reproduced.) I have asked the Clerk of Parliament to hand out earlier. Map 1 shows the proposed Ayer Rajah Expressway from Clementi Road to Jurong Town Hall Road. I would bring your attention to the new interchange at Clementi Avenue 6. There is a brand-new flyover over the proposed AYE that goes northward and joins Commonwealth Avenue West at Clementi Avenue 6 and its extension into the new proposed Ulu Pandan arterial road.

When the AYE is completed by perhaps end-1988, it would then be possible to travel by expressway from Jurong Town Hall Road to Changi Airport. This is definitely welcomed by most people. However, building an expressway means that certain roads that have access to Ayer Rajah Road will now be closed. May I refer you to Map 2. In Map 2 on the upper left hand corner, you will find Faber Hills Estate. This is a map sent to me by the PWD on 3rd September this year showing that three accesses from Faber Hills Estate to the AYE will be closed when the AYE comes into operation. When that happens, access to the estate would then only be by way of the new interchange at Clementi Avenue 6 with one single road leading into the estate as shown on the map which I have highlighted as the sole access after closure. Where there are three entry points now, in future there will be only one. This means that all traffic in and out of the estate will be channelled to the section of Faber Drive which is highlighted in Map 2. Already the traffic along this stretch of the road at the moment is fairly heavy and one can imagine how bad it will be when the road is closed. Moreover, this stretch of road is just enough for a two-way traffic and cannot be widened.

I have proposed to the PWD, as highlighted in Map 3, to open up another junction which is the junction of Jalan Lempeng and Faber Drive. Yet, just recently when the letter came from the PWD, this matter that I proposed has completely been forgotten. I would say that if this can happen to Faber Hills Estate by the construction of a major road like Ayer Rajah Expressway, this can happen anywhere else in Singapore. It seems to me, at least, there is a lack of thoroughness in following through to the consequential effect of a major construction like AYE by the PWD.

Another major road construction in the Bukit Timah constituency is the construction of Ulu Pandan arterial road which I have already highlighted in Map 1, and if you refer to Map 4 it will show the arterial road extending from Clementi Avenue 6 over the Sungei Ulu Pandan, cutting across the resettled area which is being resettled, like Lorong Senohong, Lorong Hakikit and so on, and joining at PIE. When my constituents learnt of this project, a handful of them became quite upset about this. These are the vocal ones, the younger constituents, who were able to express themselves very well in English. They have this new concept of Government and how people should participate in government. They lament the loss of their scenic frontage and the resulting loss of their privacy when the new road will be constructed. They also charge that HDB, and by extension the Government, has shortchanged them in not informing them of this potential development when they made the option to move into the estate. They do not accept the fact that the resultant benefits of the new proposed arterial road to the neighbourhood and the country far outweigh any personal deprivation and the increased noise pollution they would have to endure. More importantly, perhaps only one or two of them believe that if they can rouse up the residents to unite against the project, Government will relent and scrap the project altogether, and I found this to be clearly quite disturbing. I believe this attitude is clearly undesirable in a country like ours.

To begin with, these people have forgotten that the very fact that they are living in HDB flats means that someone else has sacrificed earlier when the land was repossessed by the Government to build the HDB flats they are living in. In my view, the nation-building process in Singapore rests to a large extent on the principle that if the few were to sacrifice for the benefit of the majority, that shall be the case. I am concerned that with better education and exposure to the Western concept of the rights of the individual, the consensus of the older generation for nation-building would be lacking in the younger generation. I urge the Government to monitor this trend carefully and, when necessary, launch a concerted effort, such as a national campaign and other educational processes like in schools, to ensure that such consensus is not eroded.

However, it is also true that in a compact society like Singapore the effect of noise pollution of an expressway on the residents ---

Mr Speaker: Dr Wang, your 20 minutes are up.

The Minister for National Development (Mr Teh Cheang Wan): Mr Speaker, Sir, the Member for Bukit Timah raised three points, ie, the resettlement of the farmers and residents and also the URA's resettlement of the shops as well as the PWD's road construction project. So I will answer in that order.

The resettlement in Singapore, as correctly mentioned by the Member for Bukit Timah, is handled by three authorities, ie, JTC resettles development affected by JTC, mainly the industrial development. URA handles the resettlement of mainly the shopkeepers in the central area for urban redevelopment. The rest of the resettlement is done by HDB, ie, public housing, schools, hospitals, roads and other ministries' development. But we have only one resettlement policy and this is being followed by all the authorities, ie, HDB, URA and JTC are following the same policy. In handling resettlement there will be some discrepancy. There is discrepancy even within the HDB resettlement and not just between the URA and JTC because HDB resettlement covers the rest of Singapore, other than those areas undertaken by JTC and URA, and HDB has several resettlement teams working in the various divisions. Quite often, discrepancy occurs. This is unavoidable. But I would say that in most of the cases they have been satisfactorily resolved.

On the point raised about the tenants on land who have been shortchanged by the Government or they have not been properly compensated by the Government, I would like to explain that quite often it is a dispute, not so much with the authority, but a dispute between the tenant and the landowner. After the land has been acquired by the Government, the Government will pay compensation for the acquisition in two forms, ie, either vacant possession or encumbered compensation. If it is vacant possession, then the landowner has to deliver the land, vacant, to the Government, without encumbrance. Alternatively, the landowner goes to court to obtain a judgment to say that the occupants of the land have no legal entitlement to the land. In other words, the occupant is not a lessee or is not a rent -controlled tenant, which means that, in both cases, he is protected by the law and the landowner cannot evict him. Unless the landowner can produce this document to the resettlement authority or the resettlement department, ie, JTC, URA or HDB, they will not pay the landowner the vacant possession value. Quite often the problem is something like this. The landowner has arrived at an understanding with the tenant and he pays a certain amount of money to the tenant. The tenant has agreed to give up his tenancy. The landowner then goes to the Government to claim vacant possession. Subsequently, when the Government moves in, the tenant then comes back to say, "This durian tree belongs to me. This papaya tree belongs to me. This improvement belongs to me. Government, please compensate me." That is how the dispute comes about and a lot of cases are due to this. The tenant, in fact, has arrived at an understanding with the landowner but subsequently, for various reasons, either he thought that he could get another compensation from the Government or he felt that he had been cheated by the landowner.

But of the six cases raised by the Member for Bukit Timah, since four cases have been satisfactorily resolved and two cases are still outstanding, I would suggest that perhaps the Member can write to my Senior Parliamentary Secretary and give the details of the two cases and we will see what assistance can be rendered by the Resettlement Department.

On the resettlement of the shops at 7th Mile, Bukit Timah, this is an impossible problem. There are at present 71 shops altogether. In the new Bukit Timah estate developed by HDB, there are altogether 16 shops. So it is impossible to resettle 71 shopkeepers into 16 shops. The problem is just as simple as that. It is not possible to resettle 71 shopkeepers into 16 new shops. From HDB's experience, it is not desirable to resettle all the resettlement cases in the shopping centre, and that the shopping centre will do better business if half the shops are taken by resettlement cases and the other half by public tender. There is then a good mix of trade and there is also a good mix of shopkeepers. The shopping centre is more viable that way. That means eight shops will go to resettlement cases and eight shops will go to the public, and therefore the 71 resettlement cases cannot be resettled into eight shops. So we have to find other solutions. I will ask the URA to look into it and, if necessary, delay the clearance because the new Bukit Timah estate is now developed and there is a bigger population there, and if the shopkeepers can remain in that area, then they will not be unlucky twice. They may have been unlucky once but lucky twice because they will enjoy the business from the new Bukit Timah estate residents.

On the point raised by the Member for Bukit Timah about the Ayer Rajah Express- way. When the Expressway is built, all the roads previously connected to Ayer Rajah Expressway will be cut down to a minimum because expressways cannot have too many road junctions. If expressways have a lot of road junctions, then expressways will not achieve the desired flow of traffic. So all access to the Expressway will be cut off. But I would like to assure the Member for Bukit Timah that PWD has, in fact, a proposal to provide alternative access to the Faber Hills estate. I will ask PWD to send a copy of their new plan to the Member for Bukit Timah. And if the Member is still not happy, he can always write to me and we can look further into it.

On the question of the extension of Clementi Avenue 6 which generates noise. In Singapore because of the shortage of land, we have to build highrise buildings and we have to construct the expressway, the arterial roads, very near to HDB developments. And it is impossible to avoid traffic noise affecting the estate. This is because of our own land constraint and our high-rise development. I must say that there is no easy solution to this problem. In fact, PWD has made a study of how to combat the noise affecting highrise buildings. So far, they are unable to find a satisfactory solution. At present the advice is that we plant more trees along the roads to reduce the intensity of the noise. Under the HDB housing policy, if the residents who live near expressways find the noise intolerable, they can, if they have lived in an HDB estate for more than five years, sell their flats in the free market and move elsewhere. So if anybody finds the noise intolerable and they cannot live near the expressway and they have to move, then this is perhaps the only alternative. But, however, I would like to say that --- 4.02 pm

Mr Speaker: Order. The time allowed for debate has expired.

The Question having been proposed at Twenty-eight minutes to Four o'clock pm and the Debate having continued for half an hour, Mr Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned accordingly at Two minutes past Four o'clock pm to a date to be fixed.