Oral Answer by Ministry of National Development on Batch 10 of the Estate Upgrading Programme

Oct 2, 2017

Mr Edwin Tong Chun Fai: To ask the Minister for National Development in respect of Batch 10 of the Estate Upgrading Programme (EUP)

a) what was the closing date for the nomination of these projects;

b) when will these nominations be evaluated and decided upon by the EUP Committee;

c) when will the successful nominations be implemented; and

d) on average, what is the time lapse between the close of nomination of an EUP project and the evaluation of nominations by the EUP Committee.

Answer:

We will invite the Citizens’ Consultative Committees to make nominations for Batch 10 of the Estate Upgrading Programme when we have a firm implementation timeline.  There are currently 17 ongoing EUP projects from various Batches island-wide, including 9 of the most recent projects approved from Batch 9.  We would like to complete some of these ongoing projects first, before calling for new nominations. This will allow us to devote more requisite resources to better manage current projects and to ensure new projects will be well-managed as well.

Typically, it takes around 8 to 10 months to evaluate nominations before announcing the selected estates.  But the exact duration depends on the number of nominations that we receive and the completeness of each application. Using Batch 9 as an example, we received 55 nominations that took about 8 months to evaluate.  During this time, MND and agencies assessed the scope of the potential upgrading works, conducted site visits to assess on-ground conditions, and considered how best to dovetail the works with agencies’ other improvement plans.