COST OF AND REVENUE FROM CAR PARKS

Mr Cheo Chai Chen asked the Acting Minister for National Development, since the establishment of the Housing and Development Board and the Urban Redevelopment Authority till June 1994, what is (i) the total cost of building and maintaining open car parks and multi-storey car parks and (ii) the total revenue collected from these car parks.

Mr Lim Hng Kiang: Prior to 1991, HDB did not include land depreciation costs in its car park accounts. It is therefore only meaningful to give cumulative figures from 1991, as annual accounts before then did not reflect land costs.

According to HDB's accounts, the total cumulative cost for HDB car parks from FY 90/91 to FY 93/94 is $946 million, while the total cumulative income, which includes fines, for the same period is $878 million. In other words, over these four years, HDB suffered a loss of about $58 million.

In fact, the loss should be higher, as the land costs just mentioned were based on a land valuation done back in 1985.

Over the same 4-year period, URA's total income from its car park operations amounted to $132 million. However, of this, $51 million came from parking fines. URA's income from parking fees totalled $81 million.

URA's total cost was $72 million. As in the case of HDB, the price URA pays for its use of state land for roadside parking is low. URA would also be incurring a loss if it had to lease land for its car park lots at rates similar to those for private car parks.