The Ministry of National Development (MND) and HDB will be studying the voting process for the Home Improvement Programme (HIP), said Minister for National Development Chee Hong Tat.
Speaking to the media on Thursday (Jan 8) after a visit to ParkEdge @ Bidadari, Chee said that the voting threshold for HIP is an issue that the ministry is “studying heavily”, after recent voting exercises for upgrading estates failed to proceed when they did not meet the threshold.
“We want to help the estates that are older to go through HIP,” the minister said, emphasising that the ministry has observed that reaching the threshold may be significantly more challenging for blocks with fewer units.
Launched in 2007, HIP helps upgrade older HDB flats and address common maintenance issues. For HIP to proceed, at least 75 per cent of a block’s eligible Singaporean households will have to vote for it.
In November last year, two blocks of post-war flats in Tiong Bahru failed to qualify for HIP after failing to garner sufficient votes.
Each block in the estate had between 15 and 24 units, resulting in each unit holding a “very high weightage” of the vote, said MP Foo Cexiang at the time.
In reviewing the HIP threshold, Chee said that the ministry will be consulting stakeholders to gather feedback on how the process can be better managed.
“But we also need to respect the decisions of the flat owners who are living there, and I think we need to strike the balance,” he said.
At the same time, Chee said that details for the next tranche of HIP for “older flats”, tentatively those that are at least 60 years old and above, will be shared in the future.
