Opening Remarks by Minister Desmond Lee at the Long-Term Plan Review (LTPR) Public Engagement Phase 3 Round-Up Dialogue Session 2

Apr 16, 2022

Introduction

A very good morning to all of you. Thank you for joining us on this Saturday morning.

Many of you attended the dialogue last week hosted by my colleague, Minister Indranee Rajah. We are happy to have so many of you back with us today, notwithstanding this long weekend. We would also like to welcome those who are joining us for the first time.

Before we begin our conversation virtually, let me share some thoughts on long-term planning in Singapore.


The Challenges of Long-term Planning in Singapore

In our land-use planning, we have always strived to be far-sighted, to be bold, to be responsive to current needs, and yet also responsible to future generations. With very limited land and resources, this is a necessity. Our planners constantly try to look decades ahead, making moves today that seek to secure our future for years to come. And unlike other cities, where immediate needs are met sometimes at the expense of long-term considerations – we do not shy away from making costly moves today that can benefit our future generations.

This approach has brought us a long way. But today, circumstances have changed, and urban planning is becoming more challenging. There is increasing uncertainty about the impact, the direction, and longevity of many trends we face today.

Take technological advancement for example. We know it has vastly improved the quality of life. But it has also disrupted many industries, many jobs, and transformed the way we work, as we have seen during the pandemic. 

We now face tough challenges, tough questions – for instance, will trends like work-from-home persist? In ten, twenty or even fifty years, how will technology change the way we interact with one other? We have some clues, but we cannot know for sure. 

Besides technology, there are many other issues that similarly add to uncertainty, such as climate change and geopolitical events. 

While our planners think and plan ahead, unfortunately they like us do not have a crystal ball. We have to adapt by making our planning process more flexible. By regularly reviewing and adjusting our plans along the way, we can be more agile and have room to manoeuvre. Yes, the future is full of uncertainties. But if we prepare well, our future can be full of possibilities.


The Importance of Public Engagement 

To explore these possibilities, we must also engage widely. I’m encouraged that we have been able to interact with over 15,000 participants during our Long-Term Plan Review. These conversations have helped us to better understand the aspirations of Singaporeans, and helped us to crowdsource ideas that we can study further. With your contributions, our plans have been strengthened, so we can be more ready for an uncertain future.

Over the course of the past 9 months, I’ve had the chance to join a few of these discussions. Many participants shared their optimism, and through their suggestions showed how deeply they cared about Singapore’s future. Many participants told us that they love nature and greenery, that they take pride in our identity and heritage, and that they want to make our city more sustainable and inclusive. 

We have carefully considered the ideas and feedback received over the course of the last few months.  In doing so, we have studied feasibility, sought to balance the trade-offs, consider trends and challenges we face, and so on. 

For example, many of you felt that our housing estates should be more conducive for work-from-home or home-based learning, drawing from your experiences during the pandemic. For instance, some participants suggested incorporating co-working spaces within our public and private residential estates, or adding work-from-home rooms in HDB flats and condos. In considering these possibilities in the future design of our housing, we need to study the trade-offs and considerations. One of these is land supply. It makes sense if doing this means we need less office space. But it means we may not be able to build as many housing units within the same plot of land unless of course we significantly intensify plot ratios, which means taller buildings, or more intense developments. Or consume land otherwise meant for enterprise or greenery, or other uses. And while birth rates have been falling, the nuclearization of our families and expectation for more personal space means that housing demand will continue to go up for some time. We must therefore carefully deliberate each and every idea before making big moves with lasting implications.  

Today, we will focus on two areas: the Future of Living and the Future of the Environment. My URA colleagues will later elaborate on how your feedback has contributed to some of the strategies that we’ve  adopted. They will also explain the considerations underlying these strategies.

But first, let me highlight some points. 


Future of Living

For the Future of Living – we will continue to plan for a variety of housing options – both HDB and private – to cater to demographic and social trends and diverse and evolving aspirations and needs. We will inject a good mix of public and private housing in accessible locations. We will try out newer flat layouts, sizes, features and configurations. We will explore housing typologies to serve the needs of different population segments, for example, our seniors as well as persons with disabilities. We will also learn lessons from this pandemic, to make our towns more resilient. Specifically, we are studying how we can build more flexible spaces into our residential neighbourhoods, which can be adapted to respond more quickly to unforeseen situations. 

Many of you told us that you appreciate having amenities within easy reach from home, especially during the pandemic. Our housing options will continue to be well-integrated with community amenities. Reviving the kampung spirit was also brought up during public engagement. Many desire more community spaces to facilitate social interaction and community bonding, but recognise that ground-up efforts and community programming are also needed to foster interaction. Given our land constraints, many suggested that we find ways for facilities to be better utilised throughout the week. 

School facilities are one good example. Today, the Dual Use Scheme allows the community to make use of school sports facilities on weekends. We hope to let the public enjoy more facilities within the school, while ensuring students’ safety and security. We are therefore working with MOE to explore how we can plan and design new schools and schools undergoing major renovation works so that more facilities can be used by the community as well.  

Many of you also told us that you value the rich heritage of our city and felt that more can be done to integrate our heritage – both tangible and intangible – into our urban fabric. 

Taking this onboard, we recently announced that we will build on our existing conservation framework by implementing a structured Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA) process. Under this new framework, whenever a public project is likely to significantly impact an important heritage site, URA and NHB will need to be consulted if a heritage study or other measures are required. 

We will strengthen efforts to integrate our rich heritage into our urban environment, even as we build new homes and workplaces for our growing needs. As part of the LTPR, URA is developing a structure plan to map out our heritage and identity assets across the island. This includes our conserved buildings and heartland heritage, that could potentially be studied to better understand their heritage significance. URA is also studying a new concept of identity corridors, which hopes to identify areas with rich elements of heritage, memories and unique landscapes, and to seamlessly stitch them together through urban design strategies. The structure plan would guide us in developing plans to improve our heritage assets in partnership with agencies and the community, such as making them more accessible to the public, and sensitive design interventions that allow Singaporeans to better appreciate our city’s rich heritage and identity. We will announce more details when we are ready.


Future of the Environment

Moving on to the Future of the Environment. Many participants care deeply for our natural environment. You also ranked climate change and sustainability as top priorities. At the same time, many people recognised that we need to provide housing, as well as healthcare, education and other amenities, at the same time, while safeguarding land to give our future generation options. And you asked how we can enhance conservation as well as the sustainability of development. 

We share your aspirations for our future city to be green, sustainable, and liveable. 

But as our needs and aspirations grow, we will inevitably face greater constraints. 

To strike this balance, we adopt a science-based approach to steward our green and blue spaces. This means that we conserve our most biodiverse areas, enhance our island-wide ecological connectivity, and integrate greenery sensitively with future developments. When there is a need to develop greenfield sites, we will need to do so thoughtfully and carefully. We undertook this approach when we revised the plans for the Ulu Pandan site, and when we planned for the Keppel Club site, which were announced earlier this week.

As part of the Long-Term Plan Review, we want to build on these efforts to strengthen the stewardship of our natural capital. Not just for specific sites, but island-wide. For example: By recognising the ecological profile of different green spaces, protecting the most ecologically sensitive sites and connectivity corridors, while still retaining options to meet our long-term needs for future generations. This will also guide us in determining the treatment of each site, and in better integrating nature within our city by enhancing design interventions and updating our policies. 

In parallel with these efforts, we will work harder to make our city function more sustainably. For instance, we will tap on more alternative energy sources to drive our transition to a low carbon society, and push on to phase out internal combustion engine vehicles by 2040.

We will also plan ahead to make our city more resilient to climate change, such as rising sea levels and temperatures. This includes combining nature-based interventions with hard-engineering measures to protect our coastlines, and using urban design strategies to mitigate the urban heat island effect.

If we can do this well, we are confident we will be able to turn our constraints into competitive advantages, and perhaps even help Singapore become a regenerative city that seeks to do more for the environment than it takes away.


A Snapshot of our Future – Paya Lebar Airbase

All these strands on the Future of Living, Work, Mobility, and the Environment will be woven together to make our future city. 

And looking ahead, we can perhaps catch a glimpse of what the future holds by looking at one of our key upcoming developments - the Paya Lebar Airbase area. The airbase will be re-located in the 2030s, giving us some time and runway to develop our plans. Like the rest of our city, we hope to build a town that is liveable and sustainable, with easy access to jobs, green and blue spaces, as well as recreational facilities. At the same time, we want to recognise the area’s heritage as Singapore’s former second international airport.

The Singapore Institute of Planners (SIP) and the Singapore Institute of Architects (SIA) have been working with URA to develop conceptual ideas and proposals for this area. One interesting idea that has been raised by members is to create a Heritage District out of the cluster of old airport buildings, such as the control tower and hangars. Others also suggested making the Paya Lebar Airbase area a “Happiness Project” – with urban design that promotes community bonding, and well-integrated blue and green spaces that can improve residents’ well-being.

I look forward to the findings being shared with the public later this year, so that we can continue to shape this exciting town of the future, together.


Conclusion 

Before I hand over to my URA colleagues, I would like to reinforce the fundamental reason why we plan for the long-term, and why your participation by you in the Long-Term Plan Review is so important. Because at the heart of our plans, are our people. 

The LTPR is not just about building a city that works. It is about designing, building and growing a home for our people – our family, friends, neighbours – as well as future generations not yet born.

I look forward to hearing your ideas and feedback during our dialogue later. Our plans will culminate in the Long-Term Plan Review exhibition in mid-2022, and we will continue to seek your views to shape Singapore as a Space for our Dreams. Thank you very much.