Tiong Bahru Sers flats to be rented for up to $4,500

The Straits Times
Nov 8, 2007

UNIQUE FLATS: Katong Hostel will preserve the buildings' heritage, as they are among the early batches of flats.

-- ST PHOTO: DESMOND LIM

Winning bidder in HDB pilot scheme aims to target foreign students, expatriates

By Joyce Teo

A COMPANY that has just won an HDB tender in a pilot scheme plans to rent out 120 flats at Tiong Bahru for up to $4,500 a month to foreign students and expatriates.

It is the first step to boost the supply of flats in the rental market amid growing demand.

It aims to put flats vacated under the Selective En Bloc Redevelopment Scheme to better use.

Former residents of the 120 flats have moved to new and better flats nearby.

The HDB said the flats that had been vacated were identified for its rental scheme, pending long-term development plans.

The Tiong Bahru flats will get a $3 million facelift and be ready for tenants by the year's end.

The winning tenderer, Katong Hostel, which provides international student housing, will be the managing agent for the 60 three-room and 60 four-room walk-up flats.

The firm, part of the privately-held Vita Group of hostels, plans to rent out at least two blocks to students and possibly the rest as service apartments to expatriates.

Katong Hostel won the tender with the highest bid of $230,280 a month, 22 per cent above the next bid of $188,000 a month.

That price is the sum the firm will pay HDB to lease the flats for three years, with an option for three more years.

Katong Hostel aims to rent out these flats - Blocks 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 in Tiong Bahru Road - at a relatively high price of between $3,500 and $4,500 a month.

While rents in the Tiong Bahru area have risen significantly, the HDB flats there have so far achieved only up to $2,500 a month in rent, said HSR property group's executive director Eric Cheng.

But the Tiong Bahru flats are different in that they will be managed and aimed at a specific clientele, said Ms Joyce Sim, 25, a Vita group director.

She said the student housing - to be charged on a per person basis with two to a flat - is aimed at those looking for quality housing.

These could be doctorate students, for instance, who could be paying their own fees or sponsored by firms.

'These Tiong Bahru flats are among the early batches of flats,' Ms Sim said. 'We will preserve the heritage of the buildings, which have a unique design.'

joyceteo@sph.com.sg

Copyright © 2007 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights reserved. Privacy Statement & Condition of Access

Heartland Getaway 2 - Tiong Bahru Episode

En Lai checks out Tiong Bahru and gives viewer a glimpse into the history and life around this seemingly sleepy housing estate.

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Heartland Getaways is back!

Tiong Bahru will be featured tonight on Channel 5 at 7:30pm.

Heartland Getaways is back!

The effervescent host Chua Enlai jumps right back to take viewers on another round of discovery through Singapore’s definitive HDB neighbourhoods!

Each week, Enlai heads to a new neighbourhood and check out what makes it so quintessentially unique!

And the best way to do so? Hanging out with the residents of course!

From delicious grub, to quirky residents and even uncovering the odd trivia that no one else knows about, Heartland Getaways will prove to be an eye opening journey through our favourite and familiar communities!

Just like in the previous season, each week, Enlai will launch himself on an unsuspecting town!

Mingling with the residents, his journey begins; mixing up the best with the understated!

Each episode, we take a fresh new look at the history and what makes each neighbourhood distinct and different from the others.

Quirky historic facts will be featured in each episode as well as food which is every Singaporean’s obsession!

Enlai will no doubt hit the local culinary haunts and taste the neighbourhoods’ signature dishes.

Every neighbourhood has a secret of its own too, and wherever there’s a secret, Enlai is sure to find it!

It’s neighbourhood trivia at its best! Unearth an urban myth in Yishun!

Discover a high fashion joint in the middle of Bukit Merah! And even visit some of Tiong Bahru’s hippest households!

NEIGHBOURHOODS
This season Heartland Getaways will cover 11 neighbourhoods:
Tampines, Tiong Bahru, Bukit Merah, Pasir Ris, Potong Pasir, Eunos, Bukit Panjang, Choa Chu Kang, Woodlands, Yio Chu Kang & Queenstown.

Tours down memory lane

The Straits Times - (Life Section)
Nov 1, 2007

Tours down memory lane

New tours to old buildings with architectural significance are part of an inaugural festival to bring architecture to the masses

By Tay Suan Chiang

EARLY FLATS: Tiong Bahru SIT flats, Singapore's first large-scale public housing project. They were designed by the Singapore Improvement Trust and adapted the shophouse typology through the planning of courtyards and back lanes between adjacent blocks.

BUSLOADS of visitors will be dropping by iconic buildings such as the Singapore Conference Hall, City Hall and the Gallery Hotel to marvel at their distinctive facades next month.

The buildings are among the attractions in a new tour of Singapore called ArchiTours organised by a group of third-year architecture students from the National University of Singapore (NUS).

There will be two day tours and one night tour every day from Dec 1 to 9. Participants will get to learn about the history of certain buildings and how they have played a part in shaping Singapore's architectural heritage.

'We realised that not many Singaporeans know about local buildings so we decided to run this tour,' says Mr Paul Yeo, 23, head of the organising committee.

Together with two other committee members, the trio picked about 20 locations for the tour based on their historical and architectural significance.

The tours will be guided by NUS architectural students who did their research by reading up on the history of the buildings and speaking to their professors.

The day tours, which last about 41/2 hours each, will take visitors to historical and modern buildings such as the Pearl Bank Apartments and the National Library.

They cost $40 for members of the public and $25 for students.

The night tours, which last seven hours, will travel to nightspots such as Zouk, St James Powerhouse and Muse Bar at the National Museum.

OLD AND NEW: Muse Bar at the National Museum is proof of how changing lifestyles can co-exist with old buildings. -- PHOTOS: ARCHITOURS

Mr Yeo says these locations share one common feature - they are old buildings providing nightlife entertainment.

'Even when they are out clubbing, we want participants to ponder how our changing lifestyles can co-exist with these old buildings,' he says.

The night tour costs $60 for the public and $40 for students.

Mr Bryan Koh, 23, a third-year NUS science student who went on a preview of the tour last Friday, found it educational and says he will recommend it to his friends.

Among the buildings he visited were People's Park Complex and Golden Mile Complex.

'I got to see the residential areas of these two buildings, which was more than what I would usually have,' he says of the two mixed-used developments.

The ArchiTours are part of the inaugural Singapore ArchiFest 07, organised by the Singapore Institute of Architects (SIA).

The two-week-long festival is to celebrate Singapore's built environment and is a precursor to the Singapore Architectural Biennale to be held in 2010.

Mr Tai Lee Siang, 42, president of SIA, says he wants to take architecture to the streets with the $250,000 festival. It is sponsored by steel company Bluescope Steel and co-sponsored by the Architecture and Urban Design Excellence Promotion Programme of the Urban Redevelopment Authority.

'We want to engage with the public to make architecture more relevant and meaningful,' he says.

He adds that the tours will be a good starting point for Singaporeans to get interested in local architecture.

The SIA is expecting about 50,000 visitors to the festival from Nov 27 to Dec 8. A highlight is a collection of exhibitions at the City Hall featuring award-winning works from various architectural competitions such as for the Marina South Residential District and the National Art Gallery.

There will also be a two-day forum with 12 local and international architects speaking on the challenges of urban architectural design.

taysc@sph.com.sg

Singapore ArchiFest 07 will be on from Nov 27 to Dec 8 at various locations. For more information and to buy tickets to ArchiTours and the forum, log on to www.archifest.sg

Copyright © 2007 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights reserved. Privacy Statement & Condition of Access

Tiong Bahru Rooster

If you ever wandered along Yong Siak Street or the the junction of Kim Pong Road and Moh Guan Terrace, this smart looking rooster may have caught your attention.

I am sure many shutter-bugs would not have missed the opportunity to shoot this fine looking fowl.

There is a sad story behind this rooster.

This rooster used to live in the alley between Yong Siak Street and Bo Bo Tan Gardens. He had 3 other companions.

Every morning, he and his buddies would start to crow just after 4am. I think there were some problems with their internal clocks.

As a result, there were many complaints that were lodged against these FOWL gang but people were still generally tolerantly.......until the bird flu epidemic came about.

The authorities were quick to witch hunt all suspects and this brood were not spared.....except for this one who got away during the capture and destroy operations.

If this rooster could talk and feel, he would be telling you how much he misses his buddies right now. Perhaps that is why he is still walking around this area with the hope of reuniting with his friends.

Anyway, after he became "SINGLE", he always ended up at Bo Bo Tan Gardens as he was well fed there. A retired nurse had a cat there and this rooster had the audacity to eat from the same bowl as the killer cat.

Both Cat and Rooster co-existed very well and the nurse ended up caring for the rooster as well.
By the way, that cat at Bo Bo Tan was a top killer. He would kill pigeons and slowly eat every part of them except for the wings. He also kills rats very efficiently.

Why he left the rooster alone remains a mystery to me.

With a new home and a new found mammal for a buddy, life seems to be going well.

But little did this rooster and cat knew that they would be displaced very soon.

Bo Bo Tan was sold en-bloc and all of us had to leave.

As we move out of this place, we salvaged whatever useful things we could bring along and conveniently left the USELESS stuff behind.

So Mr Tiong Bahru Rooster was once again left alone to figure out how his future would look like. I would only say it looked pretty "beak".

Everyday, this rooster has outwit, outsmart and outplay his way so that he does not end up being a road kill........so that he could crow at 4am for one more time.

I really dread the day I see a lifeless chicken carcass in the middle of the road just because someone was driving too fast for this chicken to cross the road.

So why did the chicken cross the road?

New Lease of Life II

The Straits Times
10 October 2007
Joyce TeoA SMALL firm, Katong Hostel, has emerged as the top bidder in a tender to find a managing agent to lease out 120 HDB flats.

The flats - likely to be let to international students and expats - have been vacated ahead of redevelopment under a pilot HDB scheme.

They will be leased out for three years with an option for three more years.
The 60 three-room flats and 60 four-room flats are in Blocks 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 in Tiong Bahru Road.

The residents have moved to new flats under HDB's Selective En-bloc Redevelopment Scheme which is designed to add new flats to meet demand.

Katong Hostel's bid of $230,280 a month is 22 per cent above the next bid of $188,000, the provisional tender results released by the HDB yesterday showed.

That price is the sum the agent proposes to pay HDB to lease the flats - to be leased in turn to tenants.

Katong Hostel, which provides international student housing, is part of the Vita Group of hostels.

The tender, which attracted 15 widely varying bids from small firms and individuals, comes amid growing demand to lease HDB flats in a rising market.

The lowest bid came in at a mere $600 a month.

HDB has said that it will decide whether to expand the scheme, based on the tender response, as it has a potential supply of 4,000 to 5,000 flats which could boost supply in the next three years.

JOYCE TEO

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To read previous related post : New Lease of Life

S'pore rejoins Unesco 20 years after pullout

The Straits Times
Oct 8, 2007
By Theresa Tan

MORE than two decades after pulling out from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), Singapore is re-joining the organisation.

Minister of State for Education and Manpower Gan Kim Yong told reporters on Monday that that it is in Singapore's interest to engage Unesco.

For example, Singapore can learn from other member countries how to improve its education system, he said.

Also, Singapore is keen on cultural and scientific exchanges with other Unesco members in its push to build a knowledge-based economy.

Singapore became a full member of Unesco in 1965 but withdrew from the group in 1985 for several reasons.

One arose from the way Singapore's contributions were calculated, said a statement from the Education Ministry on Monday.

In 1999, then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said that Singapore left Unesco because it was asked to pay more dues than it thought was fair.

Also, Singapore felt that Unesco was a bloated organisation and took the chance to leave after the United States pulled out in 1984.

Washington was unhappy with Unesco's policies and management and felt that it was trying to establish a 'new world information order' that could restrict press freedom.

In 2002, the US rejoined Unesco.

For the past two years, Singapore has been an observer at Unesco, meaning that it can participate in Unesco activities.

The 192-member UN body aims to contribute to global peace and security by promoting education, science and cultural collaboration and communication among nations.

The Singapore's National Commission for Unesco will be set up by end of the year and will include three sub-commissions focusing on education, science and culture and information.

The Commission will plan and co-ordinate Singapore's activities in Unesco and is chaired by Mr Gan.

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Other Singapore Unesco Related Articles :
He Wants to put Tiong Bahru on the World Map
Unesco Site? Dirty Tiong Bahru's is not ready for that