- They do not have an equivalent of a volunteer-run STB. Rather, they have the Lands Tribunal which comprises of 3 professional judges and sometimes a member who is a qualified surveyor. You can read up more about it here.
- The age threshold for buildings for redevelopment, unlike Singapore's 10 yrs, is FORTY years (40. That's 4 times ours.). In fact, the Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors has suggested following the Singapore model of 10 years to facilitate urban renewal but the fact remains - 40 years is what the HK government considers to be the age of buildings before it should be considered for destruction.
- However, even if your estate is 40 years old, the Lands Tribunal may reject the application for sale, IF it considers the estate to be well-maintained and well-kept. This is because Chapter 545 of the HK law (Land (Compulsory Sale for Redevelopment) Ordinance) Sect 4(2)(a) states that the sale shall be justified "due to the age or state of repair of the existing development on the lot". This means that only if the estate is run down or in a bad state of disrepair, shall the sale be justified and approved. This is radically different from Singapore's approach which completely disregards if an estate has just been upgraded, or is very well kept and maintained.
Maybe our own legislators can take a leaf from the HK folks and learn from them. They seemed to have better considered the balance between urban renewal, individual property rights, and the condition of the estate (something wholeheartedly neglected here).
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6 comments:
Wow! What an insight!
You should put this in the News paper's forum page so more can read this.
>> "In fact, the Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors has suggested following the Singapore model of 10 years"
i'm sure they are jealous of Singaporean surveyors who have 4 times the amount of work, 4 times profit, 4 times bonus opportunity!
There are many good things to be said for not fixing things unless and until they are broken! While our government wants to accelerate progress they would rather not have to resort to requisitioning property and cleverly use human greed as a lever.
However our brilliant young academics have underestimated the degree of greed and overestimated the the level of development of our society in all ways.
If you look at Hong Kong, you will still see some old buildings which will, in time, be redeveloped. But they also have some old buildings which have been well developed and maintained and which have not been pulled down to make way for a new building.
Some in Singapore may quote the example of the Ritz Carlton Hotel (Hong Kong) which is relatively new and will make way for offices - but the Ritz Carlton site was not obtained by forcing homeowners to sell and move. Neither was the HK Hilton (now Cheung Kong Centre).
Perhaps we should make all property in Singapore fair game and let land hungry developers buy bungalow sites and put up their condos?
Why restrict redevelopment to existing condos?
Sherwood Towers/Bukit Timah Plaza should be a good candidate for en bloc.
It's old enough and bad enough (remember the contamination of the water supply by the stuff fr the sanitation pipes/tanks? And more lately the structural problem with their car park? Someone told me that at one time Sherwood Towers was listing a la the leaning tower of Pisa).
So why hasn't it gone en bloc? It was designed by a previous President's firm but that does not make it an historical monument.
We are living in a sick society. Soul-less where moneyism is the only religion that people know.
This is fascinating.
I’d been taught that left-aligned labels are preferred, to support the prototypical F-shaped eye-tracking heatmap of web browsing. The idea is that it supports easy vertical scanning.
online education
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