Land scarcity means Singapore can't afford mistakes. Good article in BT
There's an excellent write up in The Business Times
A fresh perspective on Singapore's land scarcity: that we cannot afford mistakes. Just because things have been done a certain way for many years doesn't automatically make it the best option today.
The world has changed. Therefore as Singapore matures into a different phase of nation-building, our development considerations are very different from decades ago. We are no longer just building for basic capacity. We are building for a future version of Singapore.
Sharing some snippets from the article:
Scarce land raises the bar.
When land is scarce, the opportunity cost of using it badly is also high.
The pertinent question is whether a particular allocation of scarce land produces a better overall outcome than the available alternatives. Benefits matter, but so do opportunity costs. The same logic should apply to urban planning.
The alternative to development is not necessarily 'no development'.
Over the past weeks, residents from Telok Blangah, Depot Road, Preston Road and Pasir Panjang East have developed a proposal: A Better Plan for Gillman
Rather than force a choice between economic use and leaving a forest untouched, the proposal asks which combination of uses produces the greatest long-term public value from a scarce site. The resident proposal therefore looks beyond preservation.
What is needed to understand the choices ahead.
While MND has stated that many proposed alternative sites are already earmarked for housing, needed for other national purposes or currently unavailable for redevelopment, this does not make alternatives irrelevant.
Instead, detailing those constraints is precisely what is needed to weigh the choices properly. Without them, we risk presenting forest loss as an unavoidable consequence of housing demand, without establishing whether that requirement could be met differently.
Scrutiny is not planning paralysis.
Telok Blangah MP Rachel Ong encouraged residents not to merely object, but to propose alternatives. Residents accepted that challenge.
Some 25 residents spent evenings and weekends considering housing, heritage, ecology, community facilities and commercial uses. The resulting proposal was presented to government agencies on Tuesday (Sep 1).
During the Sep 1 dialog, a younger participant made the point clearly: If the housing imperative is being justified partly by the needs of her generation, young Singaporeans should also have a say in deciding what environmental consequences they are prepared to accept.
Test the Better Plan.
If another configuration can provide the homes Singapore needs while retaining more nature, activating heritage buildings, and creating useful community and commercial spaces, we should be equally prepared to change the plan.
Singapore's success has never come from an unwillingness to transform. Neither has it come from assuming that the first plan is necessarily the best one.
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Snippets of an article published Sep 4 on The Business Times, with some edits to shorten and improve for readability.