$21m facelift for six private estates
Another $3m will fund small-scale upgrades to benefit 200,000 homes
Mr Mah checking out a scarecrow created by residents in Jalan Remanja Park, during a visit to Hillview estate yesterday to view its upgraded facilities. With him are Hong Kah GRC MP Ang Mong Seng (second from right) and Sembawang GRC MP Maliki Osman (third from right). --ST PHOTO: NEO XIAOBIN
By Esther Teo
MORE than 5,000 private households are set to benefit from a $21 million facelift under the Government's Estate Upgrading Programme (EUP).
The properties, spread across six private estates, will see the money spent on the upgrading of parks, playgrounds and drainage infrastructure. Work is expected to be completed in three years.
The Ministry of National Development (MND) announced yesterday that the Jalan Mata Ayer, Faber Hills, Roxy, Lucky Heights and Cambridge estates, plus the Beng Wan, Moonstone Lane and St Michael's estate, have been selected to benefit from the seventh EUP.
An additional $3 million has been approved under the Interim EUP (I-EUP), which targets small-scale and timely improvements, to benefit an additional 200,000 private residential homes.
National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said yesterday during a site visit to Hillview estate in Upper Bukit Timah that EUP improvements have helped bring residents together. The estate was in the fourth EUP batch and upgrading works were completed in July.
'It's not just the physical improvements... You provide the facilities, then you have an active neighbourhood community, and together they'll use these facilities properly and bring new residents in to take part in activities.'
The EUP was launched in 2000 and is targeted at older private estates, often more than 30 years old and with scope for enhancement.
The MND spent $117 million in upgrading 35 private estates, comprising more than 29,000 households, in its six previous batches. And between five and eight estates are expected to be selected every 11/2 to two years for the EUP.
The three-year I-EUP pilot scheme - which was launched in June last year - will look at providing faster upgrades of features such as footpaths, rain shelters, covered linkways and directional signs.
The initial $3 million will benefit private estates under 49 of the 68 eligible Citizens Consultative Committees (CCCs), with $25 million in total set aside over a three-year period.
Mr Mah said that as the I-EUP is a newly introduced programme, publicity for the initiative will be boosted so that more CCCs become familiar with it.
Residents in line to benefit from the I-EUP can look forward to using the new facilities as early as the second quarter of next year once building works are completed, MND said.
MND is also collaborating with national water agency PUB to integrate 'active, beautiful, clean waters' design features such as rain gardens and wetlands into the overall EUP upgrading plans.
And Windsor Park estate in Upper Thomson, which was in the EUP's sixth batch, has been selected for a pilot project.
Mr Mah said opposition wards will not be left out of the upgrading programme, noting that Sennett estate in Potong Pasir had been selected for the EUP's third batch in 2003.
'We select them based on criteria. We've already selected Potong Pasir. I don't see any reason why we cannot select Hougang, but the main thing is if they satisfy the criteria,' he added.
esthert@sph.com.sg
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Previous batches
ESTATES that had been selected for the Estate Upgrading Programme in earlier batches include:
BATCH 5 (FEBRUARY 2007)
Happy Park
Yew Lian and Thomson Park
Mount Sinai
Chestnut
East View Garden
Opera Estate
Braddell Heights
BATCH 6 (NOVEMBER 2008)
Seletar and Gerald Drive
Kebun Bahru Villas
Windsor Park and Thomson Ridge
Charlton Park
Sembawang Springs
Jalan Bunga Rampai
Lorong Melayu
Phoenix
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