Who Manages the Land Supply in Singapore?

By Paul Ho (guest contributor)

Have you ever wondered how Singapore’s land supply is managed? Who controls the largest land supply? You often see that the URA and HDB launches land for sale – do they own this land? In order to shed light on this topic, it is important to understand the role of each statutory body.

Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA)

The Urban Redevelopment Authority is primarily in-charge of urban renewal, designing Singapore’s land use master plan and various other initiatives. Their role spans residential dwelling, entire township designs which includes commercial, industrial as well as residential zoning and density.

The URA also acts as an agent for the State in carrying out land sales for commercial, hotel, private residential and industrial developments. In addition, the URA also sells sites for special uses, for example for heavy vehicle parks, conservation shophouses and recreational developments.

Housing Development Board (HDB)

The HDB as most people are already aware, involves itself in building low cost public homes for Singaporeans as well as Permanent Residents. Apart from that, HDB is also involved in many other facets of properties.

The HDB also manages a total of close to 12,000 ready-built factories and industrial land leases located island-wide catering to a wide spectrum of customer needs. These properties include low-rise workshops, warehouses, high-rise factories with vehicular ramps for access, specialized high-rise food factories and motor-vehicle service and repair complexes, and land-based properties. The majority are for rental. Most of the trades that can be accommodated within these properties and developments are Clean and Light industries and some small-scale General industries.

It is still a puzzle why the HDB is involved in industrial properties to begin with. The HDB also acts as an agent for the state to sell land for various uses, though the bulk of this land is residential HDB or EC use, it is not restricted to these.

Singapore Land Authority (SLA)

The SLA helps the government to manage its land sales system. Its role is to make sure that the land achieves optimum returns. The SLA also manages the land title system, and is also in-charge of appointing sales agents for state land. Hence it is the authority responsible for appointing sales agents such as the HDB, URA, JTC, and LTA and to make sure that compliance and statutory guidelines are adhered to for the land sales process.

Certain parcels of land are also available for sale by the state under the SLA. These lands are remnant lands (landed developments) which cannot be economically used by the state and could also be odd shaped. These lands hold great value to the adjacent land owners as they can extend their development and combine it with these remnant lands to create better economic value, or more luxurious consumption. Other lands such as agricultural land on short leases are also sold by SLA to bidders.

Contrary to popular belief, SLA is a statutory board of the Ministry of Law.

Jurong Town Corporation (JTC)

The JTC is mainly focused on building Singapore’s industrial infrastructure, and has developed 7,100 hectares of industrial land and 3.2 million square metres of ready-built facilities across the entire spectrum of industrial space.

The JTC’s role is to help Singapore concentrate industrial and economic clusters together by grouping the suppliers and services close to the end users coupled with funding and support, to promote the economic growth of Singapore.

JTC is also appointed to be the sales agent of state lands, hence it launches land under the government land sales program (GLS). JTC is under the purview of Ministry of Trade and Industry.

Ministry of National Development (MND)

This is the ministry where Minister Khaw Boon Wan sits. This is the hottest seat. The MND develops the land use planning for Singapore and pushes through various visions such as the “endearing home and global city” initiative. As such, the MND has purview over national well-being, namely food (via Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority, AVA), safety of dwellings (via the Building and Construction Authority, BCA), housing (via HDB), housing transactions and orderliness (via the Council of Estate Agencies, CEA), nature and enjoyment (via the National Parks, NParks) and land use planning, zoning and land user master planning (via the Urban Redevelopment Authority, URA), and aims to provide a superior living environment for Singapore citizens, Singapore PRs as well as other nationalities.

The URA is often appointed as the sales agent for government land sales relating to private condominiums and commercial properties, but less so in other property segments. The SLA helps to appoint sales agents for the government land sales (GLS) program for sales of state land. The URA, HDB, JTC, LTA as well as SLA can be appointed sales agents for state land. The MND overlooks the URA and HDB, the Ministry of Trade and industry (MTI) overlooks JTC, the Ministry of Transport overlooks the LTA, and the Ministry of Law overlooks the SLA.

Hence for any researcher to do a comprehensive research of property and land supply, he cannot overlook any of the above organizations.

For example, if there is an over-supply in condominiums (private properties), but an under-supply in commercial properties, it is possible for condominiums to be converted to commercial properties by paying a Differential Premium (DP) to the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) for change of use. Hence often we cannot analyze any particular property segment in isolation of the other segments.

Is HDB veering too far off?

And some statutory boards such as the HDB seem to be more enterprising and even have industrial properties under management for rental, which is weird considering its mission. Perhaps it has veered a little off its original aim of providing housing for the masses. What do you think? Leave a comment below to let us know what you think.

By Paul Ho, holder of an MBA from a reputable university and editor of www.iCompareLoan.com, Singapore’s first Cloud-based Home Loan reporting platform used by Property agents, financial advisors as well as Mortgage brokers. Posted courtesy of www.Propwise.sg, a Singapore property blog dedicated to helping you understand the real estate market and make better decisions. Click here to get your free Property Beginner’s and Buyer’s Guide.

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