Many have commented on the proposed Dover Forest development. Almost the entirety of comments related to mundane issues of having green lungs, preserving natural habitats, use alternative sites, etc. I blogged on same topic and raised two big picture issues.
Read : "Critical Spectator says Dover Forest development a good one, Singaporeans should suck it up"
One issue I raised was the population of Singaporeans (newbies excluded) has plateaued, so what exactly is the continued fervour of public housing all about? HDB provided a good write up of the proposed HDB estate, including various demographic data. However, the elephant in the room was data on new citizens and permanent residents.
Curious, I tried to dig in on the data. Here are the facts (data pertains to 2020 status) :
Singapore citizens 3,523,000
Permanent Residents 521,000
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Residents 4,044,000
Non-Residents 1,642,000
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5,686,000
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21.3% of households live in private housing.
Thus the number of residents living in public housing is 4,044,000 x 78.7% = 3,183,000.
The average household size is about 3.22.
Thus the number of households in public housing is 3,183,000 / 3.22 = 989,999.
The number of housing units built by HDB, SIT, HUDC, JTC and currently in use is about 1,074,667 (researched according to Teoalida.com).
Of course on a going concern basis, there will always be demand due to mobility across estates and unit sizes as well as household breakoffs due to marriages etc. But in terms of gross numbers, the inventories of public housing seem to be at optimum.
The HDB has a detailed explanation for the proposed Dover Forest estate, including data on demographics. But what stood out like a sore thumb is the elephant in the room - new citizens and PRs. Like all ministries across the board, the HDB is silent on this.
The continued breakneck pace of HDB estate development can only mean one thing. It is obvious the building plan is driven by population growth from immigration. Lie Thai Ker's magic number of 10 million is still in play.
