\n<\/p>\n
On planning new housing supply, Mr Chee said the agencies take into account demographic and socioeconomic trends, prevailing market conditions, and the supply of resale flats on the open market to meet Singaporeans\u2019 needs across different locations and time periods.<\/p>\n
This includes providing housing near existing estates as many Singaporeans, including young families, seniors and singles, want to continue living near their families for mutual care and support, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not possible to predict future housing demand with 100 per cent accuracy as the key demand drivers have varying degrees of uncertainty. Nevertheless, we expect housing demand to remain strong in the near to medium term, due to strong household formation rates and decreasing household sizes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
MP Dennis Tan (WP-Hougang) asked whether the government would consider intensifying existing or planned low-density residential areas, including good class bungalow areas and developments near MRT stations.<\/p>\n
Mr Chee said that where feasible, the government will intensify land usage, co-locate facilities and make better use of under-utilised spaces. This includes suitable brownfield sites in the area \u201cas far as possible\u201d, if they are available within the required timeframe, before activating sites with greenery or heritage.<\/p>\n
The government will also intensify low-density residential areas where possible, by injecting high-density public housing into predominantly landed areas, such as Turf City, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, it is not practical to assume that we can meet the bulk of public housing supply through redevelopment of landed residential areas as this will require extensive acquisition of existing landed properties, as well as significant upgrading of transport and other essential infrastructure to support higher housing densities,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
MP Pritam Singh (WP-Aljunied) asked whether public housing supply could be met through additional Selective En bloc Redevelopment Scheme (SERS) projects at older HDB estates with large surface car parks, to retain \u201cas many secondary forests across Singapore as possible\u201d.<\/p>\n
In response, Mr Chee said that SERS can only apply to a small proportion of sites in certain parts of Singapore.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also need to be mindful of the disruption to residents who have to relocate when their flats undergo SERS. Hence, doing SERS alone will not be enough to meet our overall housing demand,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
MP Nadia Ahmad Samdin (PAP-Ang Mo Kio) asked what ecological criteria and thresholds determine whether a site should be avoided for development, and how they support Singapore\u2019s long-term city in nature vision.<\/p>\n
In cases where development does proceed on sites where there is \u201cpotentially significant environmental impact\u201d, Mr Chee said an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) study will be conducted to assess the nature and magnitude of the impact and develop mitigation measures.<\/p>\n
During the EIA process, agencies carefully consider the potential impact and adequacy of the proposed mitigation measures.<\/p>\n
They also consult with nature and community stakeholders to minimise impacts, retain areas of higher ecological value, strengthen ecological connectivity, and integrate greenery into the built environment.<\/p>\n
The agencies will also implement Environmental Management and Monitoring Plans to monitor the effectiveness of mitigation measures, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, Singapore is both a thriving global city and one of the greenest cities in the world. We got here by planning for development and nature together,\u201d said Mr Chee.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government will continue to integrate development and conservation holistically within our broader planning framework, underpinned by science, so that our people and the environment can thrive together in our City in Nature.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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MEETING HOUSING SUPPLY On planning new housing supply, Mr Chee said the agencies take into account demographic and socioeconomic trends, prevailing market conditions, and the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":83578,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dam.mediacorp.sg\/image\/upload\/s--FhEtzjQY--\/c_fill,g_auto,h_676,w_1200\/f_auto,q_auto\/v1\/mediacorp\/cna\/image\/2026\/09\/09\/image_6.png?itok=PW1dtiEI","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3568,11819,29757,4730,3569,7,40,13551,29758,3570],"class_list":["post-83577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-news-sg-global","tag-chee","tag-current","tag-designate","tag-forest","tag-hong","tag-nature","tag-plans","tag-reserve","tag-tagore","tag-tat","wpcat-2-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=83577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/83578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}