Construction din riles more residents - Singapore

Construction din riles more residents  - Singapore

By Jermyn Chow 
 
THE incessant din from piling, hacking and demolition works at construction sites is driving residents up the wall.
The National Environment Agency (NEA) heard 9,228 complaints last year, nearly double the 4,953 in 2005.

If more residents are getting riled, that is because more old buildings are being torn down to make way for new ones, said an NEA spokesman.

Last year, about 6,380 worksites dotted the island - an increase of nearly 30 per cent from the previous year’s 5,020.

The complaints are coming in despite NEA’s efforts to put a tighter lid on noise levels since October last year.

The noise limits, however, are imposed only for weekday nights, Sundays and public holidays.

Between 10pm and 7am on weekdays, worksites within 150m of residential areas have to keep to 55 decibels over a continuous five-minute period - down from 60 decibels previously.

As normal conversation is about 60 decibels, this means workers can carry out only activities such as brick-laying, plastering and painting.

On Sundays and public holidays, the 7am to 7pm limit was slashed from 90 to 75 decibels. And from 7pm to 10pm, the limit is 55 decibels, down from 70 decibels.

Companies that violate these guidelines are fined up to $40,000. If the noise continues, NEA will restrict the contractors’ working hours.

But construction sites seem to be keeping it down, if NEA’s enforcement figures are anything to go by.

On average, NEA found a construction site busting the noise limit almost every other day last year. But the 237 worksites that created the din was fewer than the 398 in 2004.

Contractors contacted said they keep the volume down by using noise barriers and less noisy construction methods or equipment.

For instance, more contractors do bored piling - which involves drilling into the ground - instead of hammering the pile into the ground.

Some contractors would also go from door to door to apologise to residents for the inconvenience and, in some instances, placate the unhappy few with cakes or hampers, said Mr Desmond Low, project manager of Koon Seng Construction.

But the public relations exercise and tightened limits have not lessened the sound and fury of residents, who point out that while the worksites are quiet at night, they are deafening in the day.

Housewife Christine Goh Roske, 33, who lives in Ewe Boon Road near Balmoral, has to leave her house in the day to avoid hearing the three jackhammers banging away at the construction site next door.

‘I feel as if I’m being chased out of my own home…And I can’t close the windows as the house will be too hot and stuffy,’ she said.

Source : Straits Times  - 26 May 2008

Singapore Property - Buy, Sell, Rent, Invest

Mindy Yong

(+65)91002985

mindy@mindyyong.com

Sign of market recovery when 8 IPOs are launched

Sign of market recovery when 8 IPOs are launched

If the economy does improve, ‘08 IPOs could be worth US$4.5b, beating ‘07
By SIOW LI SEN

AS a sign of market recovery, Singapore could see eight IPOs worth US$4.5 billion launched for the rest of the year provided the market holds up, said Thomson Reuters.
 
Hopefully waiting: Mr Hiew (above) and Mr Thornton (next) both have listings in the pipeline 
If indeed market sentiment does improve, IPOs for 2008 could outdo those launched last year which amounted to US$2.65 billion from 26 deals.

So far this year only five IPOs have hit the market raising a paltry US$53.1 million. For the same period last year, US$1.1 billion was raised from eight IPOs.

Several billion-dollar IPOs were scrapped as stockmarkets got pummelled in the first quarter, including a proposed $1.7 billion real estate investment trust (Reit) by Mapletree Investments.

Another mega Reit planned by Mapletree Investments is its privately held Mapletree Commercial Trust which owns about $3 billion worth of diversified assets.

Mapletree Investments chief executive Hiew Yoon Khong told BT in a recent interview that it would launch the trust when the market stabilised, hopefully before the end of the year.

‘I agree that the IPO situation is starting to look more encouraging,’ says Mark Thornton, co-head of private equity group 3i’s Asia business.

One of 3i’s investment Franklin Offshore International is in the listing pipeline.

‘Specifically regarding Franklin, I am unable to comment,’ added Mr Thornton.

‘Liquidity is plenty in the system. Just see how the interbank interest rates continue to fall; market sentiment has improved,’ said one industry watcher.

She says that it is a matter of pricing where investors feel the returns are appropriate to the risks.

But another said that there is no clear signal that market has turned positive for IPOs.

‘The market has not worsened - we are waiting to see who will test the waters first,’ he said.

For the region, a total of US$85 billion from 234 deals are expected for the rest of 2008 - a sign of Asia’s recovery from the IPO drought experienced in the first five months of the year, Thomson Reuters said in its report on Thursday.

Year-on-year projected comparison for Asia shows estimated IPO pipeline experienced a 21.1 per cent increase compared with the corresponding period last year. This increase is a stark contrast to the 33.3 per cent decline experienced so far this year.

China and India are expected to lead the region with an estimated US$39.8 billion and US$19.7 billion, respectively. South Korea will finish strongly for the rest of the year with US$5.7 billion in pipelined deals - it has yet to issue any so far. China experienced a 5.1 per cent decrease when seen against its IPO pipeline for the corresponding period in 2007. Meanwhile, India shows strong IPO pipelined deals with a 211.9 per cent increase from the year-ago period.

By the end of 2008, total IPO volumes from Asia might reach US$103.4 billion, against US$97.8 billion in 2007, said Thomson Reuters.

Source : Business Times  - 26 May 2008

Singapore Property - Buy, Sell, Rent, Invest

Mindy Yong

(+65)91002985

mindy@mindyyong.com

Singapore HDB ‘lab’ paving the way for broadband vision

Singapore HDB ‘lab’ paving the way for broadband vision

Government agencies linked up in low-key tests to study disruption
By WINSTON CHAI
(SINGAPORE) Sometime in the near future in a HDB heartland, housewives will be able to download an entire Korean movie in mere minutes , instead of hours. Researchers at Biopolis - a biomedical science research & development hub - will be able to perform complex calculations previously handled by supercomputers on their laptops.
 
The main aim of the tests was to determine the most efficient way of extending high-speed fibre-optic cables from their current end-points to individual apartment blocks and office buildings.
 
 
All thanks to a new fibre optic network that is being built in Singapore.

And four inconspicuous public housing blocks at Boon Keng and Commonwealth may hold the key to realising Singapore’s dream of upgrading to this new ultra-fast broadband highway.

Unknown to the public, the humble housing units collectively formed the centrepiece of a low-key, multi-agency trial to assess any disruption that could result from constructing the new Internet backbone.

BT understands the tests were initiated by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and that at least two other state agencies - the Housing and Development Board (HDB) and the Land Transport Authority (LTA) - were roped in.

The upcoming Next-Gen NBN (National Broadband Network) is a key part of the government’s plan to lay a new technology foundation that will serve residents and businesses for the next 25 years or more.

When fully-completed in 2015, the network will deliver blazing access speed of 1 Gbps (gigabit per second) and beyond to power new e-commerce applications and other bandwidth-sapping services like biomedical research and tele-medicine.

 
 
The main aim of the tests in Boon Keng and Commonwealth - carried out mostly in the second half of 2007 - was to determine the most efficient way of extending high-speed fibre-optic cables from their current end-points to individual apartment blocks and office buildings. This will complete the so-called ‘last mile’ needed to achieve the huge broadband speed boost.

Singapore already has an extensive underground fibre-optic network in place - owned by companies such as Singapore Telecommunications, StarHub and even SMRT - but it ends some distance from most residential and commercial buildings.

Cheaper copper cables tend to be used thereafter to connect offices and homes to the Internet, but this ‘last-mile’ connection is set to be replaced with fibre-optic links, based on two proposals IDA has received for the new network.

‘IDA worked together with fellow government agencies such as HDB and LTA and the trials involved the testing of innovative civil works techniques for Next-Gen NBN,’ an IDA spokesperson confirmed.

‘The trials were conducted by a contractor appointed by IDA and focused on the outside plant that did not include in-house rewiring. The intent of the trials was to explore innovative deployment techniques that could reduce inconvenience to the public and minimise disruption.’

This is an important consideration for the regulator, which wants to roll out the new network with minimal fuss. When StarHub first built its $600 million infrastructure to deliver cable TV and broadband services, road lane closures were common as laborious excavation was carried out to put the new cables in place.

IDA hopes advances in cabling techniques mean that people will have to put up with fewer disruptions this time around.

To achieve this, approaches that were tested included running cables and ducts through covered walkways and drainage systems rather than digging up roads, according to sources familiar with the project.

The trial results were shared with bidders for the new network. Feedback was positive and they felt that minimal disruption and inconvenience could be achieved, IDA said.

The eventual task of translating the experiments into real-life will rest on the shoulders of the winner of IDA’s recently-concluded Network Company (NetCo) tender.

The battle to land this mammoth contract is now between two consortiums incorporating all three local telcos.

The winning NetCo will be helped by government subsidy of up to $750 million to offset the heavy cost of building the network, which some industry watchers estimate to be $1.5 billion or more.

SingTel has submitted a bid as part of OpenNet, a group led by Canada’s Axia NetMedia, which includes two other members - Singapore Press Holdings and Singapore Power subsidiary SP Telecommunications.

StarHub has joined hands with MobileOne and Hong Kong’s City Telecom to make up the rival Infinity Consortium.

IDA expects to pick the winning Netco by the third quarter of this year.

Source : Business Times  - 26 May 2008

Singapore Property - Buy, Sell, Rent, Invest

Mindy Yong

(+65)91002985

mindy@mindyyong.com