The fever for En-bloc is coming back, though there is more caution in the developers in acquiring the existing developments.

I would say enbloc is a unique phenomenon to Singapore, in which the private sector participate in bring about urban development. Prior to that, developers acquired lands solely from the Government Land Sales (GLS) programme. It had attracted much criticism, since Government paid too low a price and sold at too high a price for the land. Therefore URA looked into means to incentivize developers in rejuvenating existing residential areas, by increase in plot ratio and rezoning.

With the 1999 amendments to the Land Titles (Strata) Act, it has boosted supply of development land through en bloc sales. Every owner in the existing estate will like to hit the collective jack pot by going en-bloc. And we have seen in certain developments that the enbloc had turned ugly. In the Horizon tower, , the Court of Appeal has ruled in favour of owners who objected to the S$500 million en bloc sale after 2 years court case.

Enbloc phenomenon has creatively tied in private urban renewal with private forces, without the high-handed government intervention. Older building structures give way to new and modern developments that optimizes land use and provides improved amenities for local residents. However there are certain issues that I urge the government to pay attention to:

1. Difficult to tie in private urban renewal with public infrastructure and services enhancement: The existing infrastructure may not be able to support the increase in plot ratio, which we could see problems of traffic jam and over-crowding in certain areas

2. Undesirable change in character of local environment: with the intensification, we are seeing the loss of green open space and overcrowding issues

3. Early obsolescence of buildings leading to wasteful of national resources: The enbloc sales fever has accelerated the urban renewal process due to the market response to profit, rather than the need for rejuvenation of the area. To me it just seems to be a waste of resources if the building is relatively new and still physically sound yet is going for enbloc due to the site intensification incentivized by URA.

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