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Tag: HDB

  • Rochor Residents In Rush To Move Out As Dec 30 Deadline Looms

    Rochor Residents In Rush To Move Out As Dec 30 Deadline Looms

    The clock is ticking for the last of the Rochor Centre residents.

    Just eight days remain for them to move out of the iconic 39-year-old rainbow-coloured blocks.

    The deadline given by the Housing Board is Dec 30.

    There are some 30 households who are the final holdouts. The other residents in the 567 units have vacated their flats, leaving the estate a veritable ghost town.

    A silence lingers in the air. The flats are empty but the common corridors are full of furniture, mattresses and appliances left behind.

    But when The Straits Times visited the four blocks on Monday and Tuesday, some residents had yet to leave – and said it would be tough for them to meet the deadline.

    They include housewife Nargis Banu, 39, and her family of five.

    Key collection for their new flat in a new Build-To-Order (BTO) project at Kallang Trivista in Upper Boon Keng Road began in April, but they collected their keys only on Nov 11.

    This was due to her family’s delays in securing a $150,000 bank loan for the new flat, said Madam Banu.

    Then on Nov 22, an HDB letter came in the mail: “As most of your neighbours have already moved out, for your own safety and security, we urge you to return your flat by Dec 30.

    “By returning your flat to us as soon as possible, you will avoid incurring additional expenses in holding on to two flats concurrently.”

    The Straits Times understands the “additional expenses” refer to the service and conservancy fees that Madam Banu will have to pay for both her Rochor and Kallang homes.

    Her husband, who has been in talks with HDB for an extension, said he was verbally given additional time after Dec 30 to move.

    Their contractor has been hard at work renovating their Kallang flat, she said. But judging by the state of her new home – the flooring is still not yet finished – meeting the new deadline does not seem likely.

    Said Madam Banu, who has lived in their three-room flat for 14 years: “In the first place, we love it here and don’t really want to move, but we’ve already digested that fact and come to terms with it.

    “But now with this deadline, it seems like we are being backed into a corner.”

    In a statement, the HDB said it understands some residents collected their keys to Trivista later due to “individual circumstances, such as outstanding issues on bank loans, family issues etc”.

    It added: “For those who are unable to move out by the end of the year and requested an extension, we have considered their individual circumstances and will continue to work with them to vacate the unit as soon as possible. For security reasons, we have advised the remaining residents to move out soon.”

    It was earlier reported that the 39-year-old estate in the Bugis area will be torn down by the year end to make way for the 21.5km North-South Corridor (NSC), which connects towns in the northern region to the city centre.

    Yesterday, the HDB said the site will be handed over to the Land Transport Authority (LTA) only “when it is completely vacated”.

    An LTA spokesman said it has embarked on a call for tenders for the construction of the NSC. “Major construction works will commence in 2017 after the civil contracts are awarded, and the reconfigured NSC is expected to be completed around 2026,” said the spokesman.

    At Rochor Centre, cleaners sent by the Jalan Besar Town Council are still tidying up the estate, especially at the common bulky refuse disposal point on the fourth floor.

    But there is still plenty of trash generated by the mass exodus of residents.

    All businesses at the first three storeys, including the FairPrice supermarket, have left.

    Corridor lights and lifts still operate though, and homes still have electrical and plumbing services.

    A block away, Madam Kee Lian Hua, 65, said she also needs more time to move.

    Her family collected the key to their BTO flat in September and knew of the urgency to move. But there were just too many things to pack away, she said wistfully.

    Her daughter has arranged for the movers to come only on Dec 29, the day before the deadline.

     

    Source: The Straits Times

  • Revive Our HDB Void Decks

    Revive Our HDB Void Decks

    I read “Make more use of our void decks” (The New Paper, Dec 19) from Yong Chang Jun with much interest.

    We used to see boys playing football barefoot at void decks after school. Elderly people used to play Chinese chess there too.

    Now these scenes are not so common. The problem is that the void decks are getting smaller and lack facilities for pastimes.

    I can also remember when void decks used to have more mama shops, selling daily necessities and sundries.

    Children would go to them to buy inexpensive sweets and cheap stationery.

    The older void decks had table tennis tables and vending machines. They served as gathering places and brought out the kampung spirit.

    Instead, today’s void decks have too many barriers and random railings.

    If we are to make the void decks more appealing, we will have to bring back the amenities such as concrete furniture, table tennis tables and vending machines.

    Without them, void decks are nothing more than empty spaces.

     

    Source: The New Paper

  • Boy, 15, Possibly Electrocuted In Shower

    Boy, 15, Possibly Electrocuted In Shower

    A 15-year-old boy, Tan Yao Bin, was apparently electrocuted and killed while having a shower on Tuesday night. He suffered cardiac arrest and despite attempts by paramedics, who administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), died later that night.

    The tragedy happened at Block 233, Bukit Batok East Avenue 5.

    Neighbour Wendy Wee, 60, an administrator, said she was alerted to the incident when she heard a boy cry out for his mother in Mandarin.

    The victim’s brother, Mr Tan Qi Lin, 19, told The Straits Times he was doing his homework in the three-room flat at the time.

    “My older brother, my dad and I immediately turned off the electrical supply at home. We saw that the wiring for the heater was exposed in the toilet itself,” said the Institute of Technical Education student.

    The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) said it received a call at 8.07pm and conveyed the victim to Ng Teng Fong General Hospital in an unconscious state.

    The SCDF said paramedics administered CPR continuously throughout the journey to the hospital. But he was pronounced dead at the hospital at 9.56pm. The police are investigating the unnatural death.

    Mr Tan said the family has been living there his whole life.

    “I’m really worried about my mother. She’s not coping well.”

    His mother works as a kindergarten assistant and his father is a production worker. Mr Tan has another brother, aged 21. His family and relatives were at the morgue yesterday morning to identify Yao Bin’s body.

    Mr Tan described his brother as “an intelligent and playful boy”. He said the family will change the unit’s electrical wiring, urging others to check on their heaters and electrical works regularly. “Check that the wiring for your heater is properly installed so that the same thing doesn’t happen to your family.”

    A neighbour who wanted to be known only as Mr Tan, 39, said: “We are all worried now. We don’t have knowledge of electrical works. It’s hard to actually identify these issues until something happens.”

    The IT consultant continued: “We’re heartbroken that this happened to Yao Bin. He was a lively and friendly boy and had good grades.

    “We saw him grow up and he would come by our home to play. His parents have sacrificed a lot for their sons. This kind of thing shouldn’t have happened.”

    A 17-year-old was electrocuted in similar fashion on Aug 29, 2014.

    A coroner’s inquiry into his death last year found that he could have received the fatal electric shock when his hand came into contact with an electrically energised metallic shower outlet hose that was attached to a water heater.

     

    Source: The Straits Times

  • HDB Facade In Circuit Road Falls Off

    HDB Facade In Circuit Road Falls Off

    She heard the loud crash, peered out her window and saw, to her horror, that a piece of her neighbouring block’s building facade had fallen and crashed to the ground below.

    “I was shocked to see a missing slab of wall on the block opposite. Luckily, it happened quite early in the morning and no one was hit.

    “How can a slab of wall fall off just like that?” the resident, who wanted to be known as Madam Ng, 65, told The New Paper yesterday.

    The incident happened at about 6am on Wednesday at Block 51, Circuit Road.

    In response to TNP’s queries, a Marine Parade Town Council (MPTC) spokesman said a calcium silicate cladding board had dislodged from the building facade.

    The MPTC spokesman said: “Together with the BCA (Building and Construction Authority), HDB and our appointed professional engineer, we are investigating the cause of the incident.”

    MPTC has since carried out joint inspections with the BCA and HDB to inspect the entire facade of the affected block, as well as other neighbouring blocks with similar designs.

    CORDONED OFF

    As a precautionary measure, BCA has directed MPTC to cordon off the affected area under Block 51, Circuit Road, its spokesman said.

    Adding that the block’s structural integrity is unaffected, the BCA spokesman said: “The professional engineer will also be required to inspect other blocks within the precinct with similar features.”

    The Circuit Road incident comes less than a month after a concrete sunshade outside a fourth-storey Tampines flat fell off and landed on another sunshade on the third floor.

    No one was hurt and the cause is being investigated. The affected four-storey building has been found to be structurally safe by HDB engineers.

    But Circuit Road resident Gary Lim, 34, a sales manager, pointed out that the dislodged calcium silicate board could have hit someone. “This estate has many elderly residents. They may not be able to walk away fast enough to avoid any falling objects. It’s dangerous,” he said.

    Engineer Chong Kee Sentold TNP that the board facade, which is not part of the building structure, could have fallen off due to its age.

    “Like all materials, it could have aged with time,” said the former president of the Institution of Engineers.

    The board facade is made from calcium silicate, which is fireproof and moisture-proof.

    This means that even when exposed to moisture, there is no permanent loss in strength of the material as long as the moisture dries out.

    Another possible reason for the dislodged calcium silicate board could be the corrosion of the fasteners that hold the board to the metal frames, Mr Chong added.

     

    Source: The New Paper

  • You Don’t Need Much Space To Have Sex: Josephine Teo On ‘No Flat, No Child’ Belief

    You Don’t Need Much Space To Have Sex: Josephine Teo On ‘No Flat, No Child’ Belief

    You do not need much space to have sex.

    That was the feisty rejoinder from Senior Minister of State Josephine Teo, who oversees the National Population and Talent Division, to a question on whether young people are not getting their flats early enough to have children.

    The suggestion was that this could be a chicken-and-egg problem. To qualify for the Parenthood Priority Scheme, which gives first- time married couples first dibs on getting a flat, they must be expecting or have a citizen child below 16.

    But to have a child, some say they need to have a flat first.

    With a straight face, Mrs Teo declared: “You need a very small space to have sex.”

    Known for her candid blog posts on dating and marriage, Mrs Teo does not mince her words – think “menstruation” and “cysts” – when it comes to urging young people to look for love and settle down early.

    In an interview on marriage and parenthood issues last week, the mother of three teenage children tackled issues ranging from infertility to why the Government should not be “too kaypoh” (Hokkien for busybody).

    She noted that the Singaporean love story has a different arc from that of countries in the West. “In our case, man meets woman, man falls in love with woman, man proposes to woman, they then plan the wedding and do the house,” she said.

    “In France, in the UK, in the Nordic countries, man meets woman, tonight they can make a baby already. They love each other. Both of them partly have their own family, so it is a matter of living in yours or living in mine, and they also don’t have to worry about marriage – that comes later,” she added.

    So how about having a couple declare that they wish to have a child in two years and get the flat first?

    “What if they can’t conceive? Take back the flat from them? How do you know they really tried to conceive? Can we check whether they use contraceptives? Cannot, right?” she replied, amused.

    Instead of having the Government poke its nose into the bedroom, Mrs Teo relied instead on persuasion. She urged women to have babies early as they would not know if they are fertile or not.

    “You never really know that you’re not fertile until you try. Unfortunately, it is one of those things. There is no fertility indicator. As a woman you will know, if you have regular menstruation, okay, (there is a) likelihood. But maybe you have a major cyst and how would you know until you attempt to conceive, only to realise that you can’t?”

    The search for love is also not something to be left to chance, she said. “When I meet young people and ask if they go and look for upgrading opportunities, they said ‘yes’. I said, ‘What about love? Do you go and look for love?’ They said ‘no’. I said, ‘Why not?’ They said, ‘If it happens, it happens’.

    “I said, ‘You don’t think that upgrading and a good job, if it happens it happens, right? So why is it that you would apply that thinking to your career and your own education, but you don’t apply it to your personal life?’”

    However, the minister was quick to point out that there is a need to respect personal choice when it comes to marriage and children.

    She said: “In this day and age, it is not possible for us to say that you are somehow bad, you are not doing your part for society.

    “No, there are many reasons why people remain single. Sometimes, (for) very good reasons. Why should we pass judgment on them?”

     

    Source: The Straits Times