LAND SCARCITY AND THE LAND ACQUISITION ACT
Newly independent Singapore faced many urban challenges. Land badly needed to address overcrowding and slums in the city centre was in short supply. With limited funds and resources, the new government enacted sweeping legislation to obtain land for urban development without straining public coffers. 6 The Land Acquisition Act (LAA) of 1966 was controversial but necessary, as then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew would later explain:
When we were confronted with an enormous problem of bad housing, no development, overcrowding, we decided that unless drastic measures were taken to break the law, break the rules, we would never solve it. We therefore took overriding powers to acquire land at low cost, which was in breach of one of the fundamentals of British constitutional law – the sanctity of property. But that had to be overcome, because the sanctity of the society seeking to preserve itself was greater. So we acquired at sub-economic rates. 7
The power to acquire land was critical to fulfilling many of Singapore’s early objectives, from the provision of public housing to the development of industrial estates and major public infrastructure projects such as the airport and ports. Because land acquisition was by nature sweeping and contentious, 8 its legal and administrative framework had to be open, fair and transparent. Safeguards as well as an appeal process were put in place to prevent its abuse by the unscrupulous and to ensure that land acquired was clearly needed for a public purpose. 9
THE BUKIT HO SWEE FIRE
The fire that broke out in the Bukit Ho Swee area on 25 May 1961 ravaged 2,200 dwellings, 16 but it became a catalyst for the expansion and acceleration of the Government’s public housing programme. Emergency flats were built with great speed – averaging three-and-a-half units a day – to rehouse victims of the fire. This boosted HDB’s credibility and demonstrated the Government’s commitment to provide for the people. After independence, the new Bukit Ho Swee estate, at the periphery of the city, would help resettle families relocated from the Central Areas of the city, freeing up the city centre for urban renewal.
RESETTLEMENT
Looking back, it looks so natural or inevitable, this sprouting up of housing estates all over Singapore. But each step along the way, from the clearing of squatters, the acquisition of land, the building and so on, entailed much effort. In some cases, the unhappiness over resettlement remained for years, maybe never went away entirely.
– Mr Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister 25
Residents on land that had been acquired for redevelopment under the Land Acquisition Act had to be resettled, sometimes against their wishes. In the early years, many viewed resettlement with great suspicion, hostility and even organised resistance. Violence against public officials was not uncommon. Former Deputy CEO of HDB, Mr Yao Chee Liew, who was then a young civil engineer, recalls:
Gangs of squatters would attack us with parangs and chase us away. They meant business. Sometimes, we would have to run for our lives, across narrow planks over the drains to escape. 26
It was an iterative process; public officers learnt from early mistakes, and resistance to resettlement eventually declined. By the 1980s, resettlement would hit a high of 18,000 cases a year, with slum dwellers and tenants offered new HDB flats.
The Government was mindful to respect and preserve social bonds that had been built up over the years – communities were often resettled as a group so neighbours and families could continue to live near to each other in their new estates. This principle endures in the way the current HDB Selective En bloc Redevelopment Scheme (SERS) is managed.
In 1974, URD became an independent statutory board, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), under the Ministry of National Development. Its main task was to redevelop the Central Area and resettle affected residents to new locations. Between 1967 and 1989, URA vacated and sold a total of 184 hectares of land; the resulting 155 development projects transformed the Central Area into a modern financial and business hub. 27 Through the Government Land Sales (GLS) Programme, the Government has used the sale of land to steer and implement urban development plans through the private sector. The OUB Centre and OCBC Centre are two examples from this early period of Singapore’s urban transformation that still stand today.
In the late 1980s, there was a deliberate and comprehensive overhaul of Singapore’s land planning system and institutions. In 1989, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) Act was amended to amalgamate URA, the Ministry of National Development’s Planning Department and its Research and Statistics Unit. This reorganisation laid the foundations for an integrated land planning authority that could plan on a national level for Singapore as a whole, beyond just the Central Area the old URA had been primarily responsible for. 28 Its immediate task was to formulate the 1991 Concept Plan – often regarded as Singapore’s watershed plan, as it was the first time that the local planning authority would be drafting the Plan on its own. 29 The Plan would map out physical land use for a period of 40 to 50 years, on the basis of an ultimate population size of 4 million.
Unlike the 1971 Concept Plan, which mainly involved government agencies, the 1991 version featured a concerted effort to solicit views from the non-government sector, including the private sector and academia. This consultative approach was intended to “tap the ideas, skills and experience of the private sector” and “ensure that the land use plan in each zone [took] into account the opinions and ideas of all interested sectors of [Singapore] society”. 31
The 1991 Concept Plan articulated the audacious idea that land use should be integrated with transport planning, in tandem with the decentralisation of commercial activities from the city’s Central Area. Decentralisation would help to ease congestion in the city centre. Public transport would play a central role in the growth of the city: 32
The 1991 Concept Plan made it clear that Singapore’s entire urban system must have public transit as the first organising principle. Therefore, the planning and allocation of the most intensive and activity-generating uses were at the most accessible locations by mass transit… the interchange stations where two or three MRT lines meet.
– Mr John Keung,
Deputy CEO, URA (1996–2001)
URBAN CONSERVATION
As early as 1971, the Government had established the Preservation of Monuments Board to identify historically and architecturally significant buildings in Singapore to preserve. But in Singapore’s early years, urban conservation was not a top priority, since limited public resources were focused on more pressing issues such as public housing and unemployment. Later, then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew would note that his government had “recklessly demolished the old run-down city centre to build anew”, and that this had triggered a sense of “disquiet over the speed at which [Singapore was] erasing its past”. 30 When the new URA was established in 1989, it was also formally appointed as the national conservation authority, with the mandate to conserve Singapore’s built heritage. In July 1989, URA gazetted the first batch of areas for conservation comprising Chinatown, Little India, Kampong Glam, the Singapore River, Emerald Hill and Cairnhill.
REDUCING CITY CONGESTION AND RESTRICTING THE CAR POPULATION
Between 1962 and 1973, the number of motor vehicles in Singapore grew by 8.8% a year, adding to congestion on the roads. 34
In order to avoid the long traffic jams that brought other developing cities to a regular standstill, the Government took decisive steps to curb the burgeoning car population and manage road usage by deploying a range of market-based policies.
This included the Area Licensing Scheme 35 in 1975, which charged motorists a toll for entering the Central Business District (CBD) and the Certificate of Entitlement (COE) in 1990,
limiting the number of vehicles added to the roads each year.
RAIL VERSUS BUS
The 1971 Concept Plan sparked a decade-long national debate. 39
At stake: the future of Singapore’s public transport. Then Minister for Communications, Mr Ong Teng Cheong, favoured a mass rail transit system;
an idea the Prime Minister also supported. 40
Dr Goh Keng Swee, then Finance Minister, opposed rail development because of its exorbitant cost (some $5 billion at the time),
41 and preferred a much cheaper all-bus system. 42
Two teams of American experts were commissioned to study the two proposed systems.
In 1982, the consultants reported that an all-bus system was not practical as it would have to compete for road space in land-scarce Singapore.
On the other hand, rail development was likely to enhance land values around stations, particular in newly reclaimed areas such as Marina Bay. 43
Finally, the decision was made to proceed with constructing the Mass Rapid Transit system, which has redefined the Singaporean landscape since.
In an era of progress and prosperity, however, scarcity could lose its motivating force in the national consciousness. Singapore, the global city of today, is facing political, social and cultural challenges that former Minister for Foreign Affairs, the late Mr S. Rajaratnam, anticipated 40 years ago, when he first coined the term “global city” to describe Singapore’s future aspirations:
Laying the economic infrastructure of a Global City may turn out to be the easiest of the many tasks involved in creating such a city. But the political, social and cultural adjustments such a city would require to enable men to live happy and useful lives in them may demand a measure of courage, imagination and intelligence which may or may not be beyond the capacity of its citizens. 51
As material needs are met, other priorities and anxieties may take hold. Yet while the physical dimension of Singapore’s urban transformation over the past 50 years has been remarkable, we should remember that our nation-building project has always been about much more than merely roads, flats, trains and infrastructure. The past 50 years have represented a herculean effort to transcend and overcome not only physical but also social constraints and limitations, “creating a country where none had been intended”. 52 Our core Singapore institutions such as public housing and our clean, green and inclusive environment can help preserve and regenerate our sense of who we are as Singaporeans even as we move into an uncertain, complex future:
