SDP chair Paul Tambyah: 'Depressing' to hear that Singaporeans have to wait 'til their 40s or 50s to buy their own BTO flats
SINGAPORE: In a recent social media post, Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) chair Paul Tambyah did not sound too optimistic about current social conditions as he picked out a line from the HDB about an older cohort of Singaporeans purchasing homes.
“I don’t know which is more depressing—that the HDB appears to have brushed aside the plans from Singaporeans or that the HDB now says that forty- to fifty-year-olds are ‘now looking to buy their own flats’,” he wrote in the caption to an Oct 29 Facebook post.
Dr Tambyah posted a photo from a Straits Times article about the revised plans for Maju Forest and Gillman Barracks, saying that additional greenery will be kept as the Housing & Development Board will build fewer homes than originally planned.
HDB had announced this on Oct 28 after a review of the initial plans had taken into consideration environmental studies, feedback from the public, Singapore's housing needs, and the availability of alternative sites.
The SDP chair commented, “I had heard that the current government has failed to deliver the 5Cs to young people today, but now hearing that they have to wait till their 40s or 50s to buy their own BTO flats is even sadder.”
This comment was based on a part of the article that reads, “HDB said housing demand in recent years has been strong, with larger cohorts of Singaporeans, who were born in the 1980s and 1990s, now looking to buy their own flats.”
In HDB’s media release, the wording somewhat differs, as it refers to the cohort born “in the late 1980s and 1990s, when fertility rates were higher, are now at the age to buy their own flats."
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People born in the late 80s and 90s are now around 30 to 40 years old. With the Site Work Commencement at Gillman Barracks in the second half of 2027 and at Maju Forest in the first half of 2028, and with construction typically lasting around three to four and a half years, this appears to be the basis for Dr Tambyah’s comment. /TISG