En-bloc sales eroding our 'sense of kampung'

[mr funny]

March 17, 2008

En-bloc sales eroding our 'sense of kampung'


PLEASE refer to last Friday's article, 'Some Gillman Heights owners fight on for their homes'.

Gillman Heights is an excellent example of what is happening on the collective property sale scene today:

Minority owners fight desperately to keep their homes;

Minority and majority owners find replacement value like-for-like, in terms of location, size and price, does not result in a win-win situation for sellers; and

Collective property sales create social tension in private housing estates, which erodes the fabric of society and our 'sense of kampung'.

The bitter jeers and ugly scenes reported recently at the Bayshore Park extraordinary general meeting, where the minority were not allowed a proper hearing, are becoming typical of collective property sale meetings across the island: Neighbour is pitted against neighbour.

The increasing litigation that accompanies virtually all recent sales attempts is a symptom of a sickness from which society needs relief. This, coupled with an increasing awareness that, in Singapore, your home is not really your home and can be taken from you by your neighbours. All these factors erode our sense of home and innate security.

Finally, many sellers realise too late that, after they have signed on the dotted line, what they thought would be a windfall is actually a shortfall. It takes two to four years to get sales proceeds - by which time the market has negated profits and resulted in sellers having to downgrade or take a loan to pay for their replacement home. The dislocation to the elderly is especially poignant.

What price will we pay for eroding our sense of kampung? What price have we paid already?

Susan Prior (Ms)

[Think]

Sense of kampung already long gone when HDB bulldoze the real kampungs 40 years ago to make way for pigeon holes.When you have kampungs you 've got all kinds of communal issues.Plz go to Indonesia or Malaysia or Thailand if you miss the sense of kampungs.This is 21st century.

[Unregistered]

Sense of kampung already long gone when HDB bulldoze the real kampungs 40 years ago to make way for pigeon holes.When you have kampungs you 've got all kinds of communal issues.Plz go to Indonesia or Malaysia or Thailand if you miss the sense of kampungs.This is 21st century.

She is stressing on the VALUES of society over greed. If you can't understand her meaning then maybe you should educate yourself.

[Unregistered]

Value of society from kampungs.This era is gone.Kaput.Now we have kiasi and kiasu spirit.

[Unregistered]

kampong+ urban slum , not quite the formula for a global city....

[Unregistered]

kampong+ urban slum , not quite the formula for a global city....

The estates targeted for en bloc are not slum. They are situated in good location. That's why the developers are interested in them. These estates, 20 years, 30 years old are generally good structually. All is needed is good maintenance and up grading periodically. This is what the sinking fund for. It is more sensible for owners to top up the sinking fund for upgrading than to trade it cheaply for less attractive location andsmaller size apartments.

[Unregistered]

En-bloc is tired. Due to heavy work for more than a year now, its reaching

recouperating cycle. The recovery period will be in a few years time and will

be fully recharge. Happy holidays.

[Unregistered]

Wow.. Singaporeans are so literal. "Sense of kampung" is different from "kampung" in its literal sense. She refers to the sense of community that kampungs used to have, the "kampung spirit" which binds neighbours together.

Does that even exist in Singapore anymore? Is that why it's so easy to sell your home?

[mr funny]

March 20, 2008

GOING EN BLOC

Sense of kampung in condos overstated


WITH reference to Ms Susan Prior's letter on Monday ('En bloc sales eroding our 'sense of kampung'), I wish to point out that in a kampung, you can walk up to a neighbour's home and peer through the open door and windows to strike up a conversation.

It is a place where children can run from one house to another and where one can take temporary shelter when caught in a sudden downpour.

Can you duplicate this openness and fraternity in large, multi-storey private housing estates like Gillman Heights and Bayshore Park where closed doors, grilled gates and windows with drawn curtains are the norm? Obviously not.

The kampung era is long gone. The world has moved on. An en bloc development allows old estates to be redeveloped and not degenerate into slums like in many other countries.

It is a better alternative than the compulsory acquisitions during those kampung days, when compensations were a pittance.

Also, one should move out of this kampung mentality and learn to make new friends while keeping the old.

This sense of kampung being eroded by en bloc sales is being overplayed by a dissenting few. The fact that the majority are willing to sell says much - that many are no longer enamoured of this kampung sentiment.

Lau Chee Kian

[mr funny]

March 20, 2008

Right to hold property guaranteed by law


I REFER to Monday's letter, 'En bloc sales eroding our 'sense of kampung', in which Ms Susan Prior has stated that minority owners have to fight desperately to keep their homes. She has also said that in Singapore, your home is not really your home and can be taken from you by your neighbours.

Article 12(1) of the Singapore Constitution states that all persons are equal before the law and entitled to the equal protection of the law.

The right to acquire, hold and dispose of property is enshrined in the Constitution. 'To acquire' means to become the owner. Unless there is a transfer of property to another or vesting and divesting of property, there cannot be said to be any acquisition of property. The acquisition must be through legal means. An usurper of another's property cannot justify his acquisition in law and is not protected either by Article 9, which protects liberty, or Article 12.

The term 'to hold' means to possess the property and enjoy the benefits which are ordinarily attached to the ownership, including its management. Your neighbour should not be able to sell your property which you have acquired. 'To dispose' means to transfer, assign or sell the property. The power to dispose of a property follows from the power to hold property.

The power to acquire, hold and dispose property is a 'liberty' that is protected by law.

If Article 12 (2) does not restrict the State from imposing unreasonable restrictions on the enjoyment of property, it would reduce the protection offered by the Constitution against an abuse of power by the State against a citizen's rights that are protected by the Constitution.

The word property in Article 12 (2) may not cover a mere contractual right for which a proper action is a suit for damages. Ms Prior's fears that her home is not really her home and can be taken from her by her neighbours may not be strictly accurate.

K.S. Rajah

[mr funny]

March 25, 2008

It's our kampung, Mr Lau


I AM saddened by Mr Lau Chee Kian's dismissal of our community at Gillman Heights in his letter on Thursday, 'Sense of kampung in condos overstated'.

I am from America and my wife, from Japan. Our two children are both born in Singapore. Gillman Heights is the only home they have known. It has been the best home I could imagine. Mr Lau has obviously never lived in Gillman Heights as I have or, if he has, he has kept himself behind closed doors and locked gate with his curtains drawn and chosen not to be a part of the wonderful community here. Our children run from one house to another, playing with friends. We regularly drop in on neighbours and strike up conversations as we pass each other in the common corridors.

Our children have been looked after by all the uncles and aunties here. We and several other families attended the wedding of a daughter of Pak Pandan, formerly a cleaner here. We gossip every day with cheerful Auntie Lim and others at her 'Come Again Minimart' in the basement of our block. Every year, we have been invited by our Malay neighbours across from us to celebrate Hari Raya at their house. We are moving out at the end of March, forced out by the collective sale. We are saddened by this move and will miss our friends and neighbours very much. We hope we will be able to keep in touch, but that is far from the same thing as having neighbours whom one can count on daily for help, advice, and friendship.

Singapore has been a great place to live in. Safety, convenience, superb green open spaces and many other things make it a great place to raise children. But it is hard to put down roots when they can be torn up so easily. Communities are living, organic things. They cannot be engineered by governments but need to be cultivated by societies. If Mr Lau's attitudes are predominant in Singapore, then I am sceptical of our chances of finding another place to grow a new community on this island. I hope I am wrong.

Eric Thompson

[mr funny]

March 25, 2008

En-bloc sales: Be sensitive to each other


I REFER to Mr Lau Chee Kian's letter on Thursday, 'Sense of kampong in condos overstated'. It is indeed true that the 'true kampong spirit' exists only among a very insignificant percentage of our population. The Government has in fact tried to keep this friendliness alive, and we see some results.

I have personally been to condos where neighbours hardly know each other. They sail past each other like ships at sea, in some cases, it's just simple greetings but they hardly know anything about their neighbours' lives, which many guard like family heirlooms. I perfectly understand that there will be people who love their homes for their location, friends, or hold on to their homes as they hold great sentimental value.

En-bloc sales at least give you some compensation, though for the minority who oppose it, it is of no consequence. But to this 'minority' who consider themselves unfortunate victims of their neighbours' fancy or greed, I would appeal to them to focus on the positives rather than the negatives ... and respect the views of the majority, rather than accuse them of wrongdoing. To the majority, who may be for an en-bloc sale, I would say, be sensitive to the minority and explain your stand with love and understanding, rather than look at them as 'thorns in the flesh'. Who knows, you may soon win them over.

In fact, sometimes, it's in times of an en-bloc 'crisis' that neighbours actually try to strike up a conversation and try to rally for support. It brings them together. Friendships should be forged in normal 'peace times' so that in times of 'war' you can at least make your stand as a friend and not as an enemy.

Patricia Stephen (Mrs)

[Unregistered]

March 25, 2008

It's our kampung, Mr Lau


I AM saddened by Mr Lau Chee Kian's dismissal of our community at Gillman Heights in his letter on Thursday, 'Sense of kampung in condos overstated'.
............I am wrong.

Eric Thompson

Where is this article? I can't find it in the Straits times?

[Unregistered]

Where is this article? I can't find it in the Straits times?

It's in the Straits Times Forum ONLINE. You can't see it on the printed edition.

[DrMinority]

Straits Times Forum Online
March 29, 2008
Poser over homes with 99-year lease

MR K.S. RAJAH'S letter, 'Right to hold property guaranteed by law' (March 20), rebuts Ms Susan Prior's comment in an earlier letter, 'En bloc sales eroding our sense of kampung' (March 17), that 'your home is not really your home'.

Mr Rajah's interpretation that 'the right to acquire, hold and dispose of property is enshrined in the Constitution...' may well be correct in the case of properties that are freehold, or even 999-year leasehold. But can the same be said to apply where leases are of only 99-year tenure, straddling barely a couple of generations, as is typical of public housing and many private estates, like the one where I am residing, with a quarter of the lease already run out?

Seen in this latter context, anybody who has made payment on such a leasehold property can be said to have not much more than what used at one time to be known as 'squatting rights', and would be liable to eviction when the lease expires. In the very early 1950's, the 100-year lease to the site of where Malayan Banking presently stands in Battery Road was on the point of expiry, and failed to attract a bid when put up for auction owing to the uncertainty of an extension by the authorities. This is the likely scenario when these 99-year leases also wind down. Ms Prior may therefore not be altogether wrong to think, and feel, that 'your home is not really your home'.

Narayana Narayana

[DrMinority]

Straits Times Forum Online
March 29, 2008
En-bloc properties hardly slums

IN HIS letter, 'Sense of kampung in condos overstated' (March 20), Mr Lau Chee Kian warned that 'old estates' could 'degenerate into slums like in many countries'. Nassim Park was only 14 years old when it went en bloc although it was in very good condition.

Horizon Hill Towers, the subject of the long running and costly acrimonious dispute now being heard in the High Court, is in pristine condition even though it is older than Nassim Park. Cavenagh Gardens in Cavenagh Road was built in the early 1960s whereas Pacific Mansion in the River Valley area and built slightly later are now around 45 years old and can hardly be considered slums by any standard, being in much better condition than some of the HDB flats only about 20 years old.

Whether an estate would turn into a slum is more dependent on the maintenance rather than age, as the many examples in China, India, Europe and others where some of the buildings are centuries old, have shown. 'The fact that the majority are willing to sell' needs not and does not justify the compulsory sale by dissenting subsidiary proprietors, as the former's decision could have been misconceived, ill advised, wrongly influenced, etc, and, as it is, turned out to be wrong, because in most cases the price they sold was too low. Dispute, acrimony and ruined lives could have been avoided from the beginning if all those concerned had faced up to the root causes and inherent deficiencies faced in most management corporations.

Bin Hee Heng

[DrMinority]

Straits Times Forum Online
March 29, 2008
Condo spirit better than HDB's

MS SUSAN Prior's letter, 'En bloc sales eroding our sense of kampung' (March 17), about the sense of kampung in condominiums is certainly not overstated. The kampung spirit in condominiums is very much better than in HDB estates where residents hardly interact with each other.

In fact, all en-bloc sales are motivated by greed, worsened by en-bloc speculators who hope to make quick profits by flipping the properties without any feelings for the residents who do not want to sell. It is a load of rubbish to say that enbloc is good for rejuvenation of an estate. In this regard, I would suggest that the Government raise the percentage of approval required from the present 80 per cent to 90 per cent in order to protect the interests of the minority owners.

William Tay Kay Chiak

[DrMinority]

Straits Times Forum Online
March 29, 2008
No regrets: En-bloc buyers, that is

I REFER to Mr Lau Chee Kian's 'Sense of kampung in condos overstated' (March 20) in response to Ms Susan Prior's 'En-bloc sales eroding our sense of kampung' (March17). In almost all en-bloc sales, most owners wished they had not sold their homes because they realised too late.

Has no property developer, who has made purchases in hundreds of en-bloc sales so far, ever regretted its land-banking? For confirmation, we should hear from a horse's mouth, as reported in the Business Times on Nov 15 last year, 'S'pore home price gains set to slow': 'Mr Lim Ee Seng, chief executive officer of Frasers Centrepoint Group, one of the biggest buyers in en-bloc sales, says: 'We are still looking to boost our land bank, but we are opportunistic and won't pay current values because our costs would be too high.' The price gain has helped the developer on earlier purchases of existing apartments, which are sold at a profit. An example is the St Thomas Suites development in the city's downtown, where apartments were recently sold at $2,189 a square foot. 'We bought the site of St Thomas Suites at $600 per square foot,' said Mr Lim in the report. That's a whopping 365 per cent profit that the Frasers Centrepoint Group has made. That's why, with their 'paltry windfall', the majority owners will never be able to buy a replacement unit. Sad to say, they must regret and downgrade.

Mr Lau rightly points out: 'The kampung era is long gone. The world has moved on.' The tremendous advances in science and technology have transformed our way of life altogether, chief of which is changing us from a caring into an impersonal society. Fortunately, Singapore has led in the field of preserving our cultural heritage from being eroded by these negative influences. Singapore has, by and large, succeeded in preserving our core values shared by all in our multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-cultural society. And the 'sense of kampung' embodied in our core values is part and parcel of our rich cultural heritage.

Admittedly, it is an uphill task to mobilise every Singaporean to imbibe the kampung spirit of yesteryear, but it is not an impossible task. The majority owners in an en-bloc sale cannot be regarded as a litmus test of their view on the 'sense of kampung'. Our uniquely Singapore has, against all odds, managed to accomplish almost everything that we have set our hearts and minds to do - most difficult of all is in uniting a people as pluralistic as Singapore into an almost homogenous nation in just 42 years. And it is a matter of time before the long and tedious process of re-moulding our people into this tremendous sense of kampung camaraderie bear fruits. Succeed we will.

Han Soon Juan

Germany

[Hopeful]

Go here for all the letters printed above:

http://comment.straitstimes.com/forumdisplay.php?f=9

Discussions are both lively and inflammatory.

[Unregistered]

[QUOTE=DrMinority]Straits Times Forum Online
March 29, 2008
Condo spirit better than HDB's

MS SUSAN Prior's letter, 'En bloc sales eroding our sense of kampung' (March 17), about the sense of kampung in condominiums is certainly not overstated. The kampung spirit in condominiums is very much better than in HDB estates where residents hardly interact with each other.

In fact, all en-bloc sales are motivated by greed, worsened by en-bloc speculators who hope to make quick profits by flipping the properties without any feelings for the residents who do not want to sell. It is a load of rubbish to say that enbloc is good for rejuvenation of an estate. In this regard, I would suggest that the Government raise the percentage of approval required from the present 80 per cent to 90 per cent in order to protect the interests of the minority owners.

William Tay Kay Chiak[/QUOTE
70% get kampong spirit of the 1960s= all sit down and talk to make things happen
80% get kampong spirit of 2000s= i must take more, unable to replace this n tat
90% get kampong spirit of 2100s= i must get a jt from developers
100% It the END spirit of Kampong

Good night

[Unregistered]

[QUOTE=Unregistered]

Straits Times Forum Online
March 29, 2008
Condo spirit better than HDB's

MS SUSAN Prior's letter, 'En bloc sales eroding our sense of kampung' (March 17), about the sense of kampung in condominiums is certainly not overstated. The kampung spirit in condominiums is very much better than in HDB estates where residents hardly interact with each other.

In fact, all en-bloc sales are motivated by greed, worsened by en-bloc speculators who hope to make quick profits by flipping the properties without any feelings for the residents who do not want to sell. It is a load of rubbish to say that enbloc is good for rejuvenation of an estate. In this regard, I would suggest that the Government raise the percentage of approval required from the present 80 per cent to 90 per cent in order to protect the interests of the minority owners.

William Tay Kay Chiak[/QUOTE
70% get kampong spirit of the 1960s= all sit down and talk to make things happen
80% get kampong spirit of 2000s= i must take more, unable to replace this n tat
90% get kampong spirit of 2100s= i must get a jt from developers
100% It the END spirit of Kampong

Good night

90% get kampong spirit of 2100s= i must get a jet from developers

[Unregistered]

Straits Times Forum Online
March 29, 2008
Condo spirit better than HDB's

MS SUSAN Prior's letter, 'En bloc sales eroding our sense of kampung' (March 17), about the sense of kampung in condominiums is certainly not overstated. The kampung spirit in condominiums is very much better than in HDB estates where residents hardly interact with each other.

In fact, all en-bloc sales are motivated by greed, worsened by en-bloc speculators who hope to make quick profits by flipping the properties without any feelings for the residents who do not want to sell. It is a load of rubbish to say that enbloc is good for rejuvenation of an estate. In this regard, I would suggest that the Government raise the percentage of approval required from the present 80 per cent to 90 per cent in order to protect the interests of the minority owners.

William Tay Kay Chiak

While I can agree with the above claim on one hand, I must also point out the side effects: power struggle amongst the neighbours to be come the council and abuse their position. This does not happen in HDB because the Town Council runs the estate.