SINGAPORE – Construction will start from Sunday in Yew Tee to build Singapore’s second “vertical kampung” that will have seniors living in a community packed with all the necessary amenities, including Choa Chu Kang’s first hawker centre.
The Heart of Yew Tee Integrated Development, as the project is called, will have a range of social and healthcare facilities for the elderly and will be ready by 2027. It occupies a land area of about 0.7ha, around the size of a football field.
The development will come with 68 two-room flexi flats for seniors in a 10-storey residential block. Facilities include a community club, polyclinic, kidney dialysis centre, retail outlets and a community plaza.
Singapore’s first vertical kampung, Kampung Admiralty, is a huge success, said Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, who was guest of honour at the ground-breaking ceremony on Sunday, in his opening remarks. Mr Wong is also an MP for Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC.
The event included activities such as brisk walking, exhibitions, game booths and performances.
Also present were Minister for National Development Desmond Lee and the other Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC MPs – grassroots advisers Alex Yam and Hany Soh and Senior Minister of State for Defence and Manpower Zaqy Mohamad.
Said Mr Wong: “We were keen to do more of such projects in other parts of Singapore. But the challenge was in finding good sites for such integrated developments, because you need to have a vacant site that is near an MRT station, and this is very hard to do.”
Noting that there will be some inconvenience over the next few years due to the construction, he stressed that it will be well worth the wait.
Apart from the facilities, efforts will be made to bring residents closer together.
The entire development will be senior-friendly, and the community plaza will host many activities for residents, such as group exercises and community bazaars, Mr Wong said.
He added: “We will complement this with spaces for residents of all ages, including our seniors, to socialise with their neighbours and friends, such as at landscaped gardens, or the hawker centre. And this is why we call it a vertical kampung – it is like the kampungs of old, but built vertically.”
The development is next to YewTee Point shopping mall, which is connected to Yew Tee MRT Station via a sheltered linkway.
Mr Wong said Singapore’s rapidly ageing population is a challenge that the Government is tackling.
Part of the solution is to have more Housing Board assisted living apartments, which are flats that combine housing with care service.
The Government piloted the first such Community Care Apartments in Bukit Batok and their Build-to-Order launch in February 2021 was very well received, said Mr Wong, adding that a similar project is coming up in Queenstown.
The authorities will also look at how they can refresh existing housing estates to make them more senior-friendly for residents to age in a familiar environment.
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