Dip in Singapore property development fees

Dip in Singapore property development fees 

Lower charges for non- landed private homes - first time in 5 years - reflect fall in land values
 
By Fiona Chan, Property Reporter 

ANOTHER sign that the values of land and private homes are sliding arrived yesterday in the form of the new property development charges.
These charges, which reflect changes in land and property values over the last six months, were lowered for residential apartments and condominium units for the first time in five years.

Property consultants were not surprised. They had expected fees in this sector to stay stable or dip slightly, given that the only residential plots sold in the past six months were state-owned parcels that transacted at fairly low prices.

No area was spared, with rates for non-landed residential homes falling across the board by an average of 6 per cent islandwide.

The move was the ‘first signal from official sources that some values in the property market are falling’, said Mr Nicholas Mak, director of research and consultancy at Knight Frank.

The Government levies development charges on developers who want to build a new, bigger development on an existing site they have bought.

The fees are categorised by sector and location. They are revised every six months by the chief valuer, based on transactions of land and property in the past half-year.

Lower charges imply that recent land and property deals have been transacted at lower prices, and also mean that it will be cheaper for developers to buy and redevelop a collective-sale site, for instance.

But property consultants do not expect the new lower charges to revive the deathly quiet collective-sale market.

‘The rise in construction costs is higher than the fall in development charges. So total development cost would still increase,’ said Mr Mak.

Developers may also hold out for further decreases in development charges in the next revision in March, he added.

‘All we need is another quarter of weak sentiment and chances are, six months from now, there could be more downward revision in the charges.’

Mr Li Hiaw Ho, executive director of CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) Research, also expects development charges to fall again in upcoming revisions.

‘In the next 12 to 18 months, development charges might move downwards moderately to reflect a scenario of realistic consolidation after the run-up in land prices in the past two years,’ he said.

This time around, the falls in fees for non-landed residential land ranged from 3.85 per cent to 10.77 per cent, depending on location.

Areas where rates dropped most included prime locations such as Ardmore Park and Sentosa, city fringe districts like Balestier, Keng Lee and Kallang, and suburban regions such as Bayshore and Bishan.

Apart from non-landed residential land, development charges barely budged in other sectors, reflecting the lack of activity and flat prices in the broader property market.

The fees for land to be used for offices, shops, landed homes, hospitals or hotels remained unchanged across all locations in Singapore.

For industrial land, charges rose only in the Ubi and Kaki Bukit area. They went up 11.1 per cent, possibly due to the recent sale of an industrial site in Ubi Avenue 4/Ubi Road 2 in April, suggested CBRE’s Mr Li.

Source : Straits Times - 30 Aug 2008

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Music and F&B close to home?

Music and F&B close to home? 

URA mulls over easing rules for businesses near residential areas 
By Tessa Wong 
  
The Thomson Village area at Upper Thomson road is an example of a livelier neighbourhood. — ST PHOTO: ALPHONSUS CHERN

COMING near you in the neighbourhood: hot food, cold beer and live entertainment.
At least, that is the plan if a bid by the authorities to help businesses create more vibrant residential areas around the island passes muster in a public consultation.

Businesses in the food and beverage industry now climb a mountain of red tape if they want to give patrons something a little different - for example, a restaurant cannot have live music unless it applies to be a nightclub, and a food kiosk cannot serve freshly cooked food unless it applies to cook on the premises.

But if the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) decides to tweak current planning guidelines, it means less form-filling and bureaucracy for businesses and increased vibrancy in residential areas.

Though it would apply to all businesses, where it would have the most impact would be in quiet residential neighbourhoods.

It could create more magnets around the island like Thomson Village on Upper Thomson Road, Jalan Legundi in Sembawang, and Holland Village, and potentially more nuisance as well as convenience for residents.

But the public will have a say in whether this happens.

The URA is canvassing public feedback through an online survey which will be on the website www.ura.gov.sg from Monday till Sept 30.

It wants to focus on businesses in private shophouses near residential areas, as these are places where the changes will likely have the most impact, said URA officials in a media briefing yesterday. There are currently 2,500 such shophouses around the island.

Current rules forbid regular performances of live music and entertainment - whether it is a violinist serenading diners nightly, or a resident rock band playing for barflies - in restaurants and pubs in residential areas. Owners of such businesses usually have to apply for change-of-use permission for nightclub status.

Food shops - takeaway food counters that have no dining areas - are also not allowed to have cooking facilities unless they apply for approval.

If the URA decides to relax guidelines, businesses no longer have to go through a two-week change-of-use application process that can cost $800.

Restaurant owner Melissa Chong gave the move the thumbs-up.

‘I think flexibility is always good for any business, especially now Singaporeans are looking for more interesting experiences.

‘If we want to create something special to attract guests but have to go through a lot of red tape, we may just forget about it,’ said Ms Chong, who runs the restaurant Peaberry and Pretzel in Sunset Way.

But while restaurants, food shops and pubs can be a good thing for a neighbourhood, ‘they can also potentially create noise, smell as well as traffic and parking issues,’ said Mr Han Yong Hoe, URA’s director of development control.

The URA has received a steadily increasing number of complaints from residents about disturbances from nearby businesses. They have got 16 complaints this year already, compared with 13 for all of 2006.

Gripes range from too-loud screenings of football matches outside pubs, to restaurant patrons taking up precious parking space.

One resident, officials revealed, even complained about the pungent smell of fried hae bee hiam (dried shrimp chilli) coming from a nearby restaurant, which permeated her drying laundry.

Source : Straits Times - 30 Aug 2008

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Defamation suits: Spare the content hosts

Defamation suits: Spare the content hosts 

By Chua Hian Hou 

POPULAR technology website VR-Zone has a team of moderators - including a lawyer - who spend hours daily trawling for and removing defamatory remarks made by the hordes of users who frequent its online forum.
Defamation lawsuits, said the site’s spokesman Terence Lee, have always been a headache for content companies like his, even if they had nothing to do with the comments.

So, it was with a loud cheer that Mr Lee greeted a recommendation from the Advisory Council on the Impact of New Media on Society (Aims).

The council wants online intermediaries to be given some protection from defamation lawsuits.

Such protection, said Aims yesterday, will in one stroke solve two problems: It will stop lawsuits against content hosts who had not put up the allegedly defamatory material, and overzealous censorship by content companies worried about such prosecution.

Since the Internet ‘is potentially a medium of virtually limitless international defamation’, people are more likely to sue ‘borderline defendants with very little role in the dissemination of the defamation simply because the creators… may be difficult to locate or anonymous’, the report said.

Singapore’s defamation law allows people to go after the person who made the offending remarks, plus others in the ‘chain of publication’.

Currently, network service providers, including SingNet and StarHub which give users access to go online, are free from defamation lawsuits.

But Internet Service Providers (ISPs) must not have made the defamatory remarks and must agree to a ‘credible and authenticated’ request from the victim to remove the allegedly defamatory material. Such a request is called a take-down notice.

But it is not clear whether content hosts, from blogs to citizen journalism site Stomp, are similarly protected.

Since no case involving a content host had gone to trial, the law remains untested, said Aims.

This ‘ambiguous and uncertain’ position means content hosts ‘have little incentive to continue carrying, hosting or linking the allegedly defamatory material, and may in the face of a complaint err on the side of caution’ and simply remove the offending material, it added.

This ‘may lead to abuse by persons who wish to have truthful but unfavourable material removed’.

Aims’ recommendation: offer content hosts protection similar to that given to ISPs, for defamation.

It also suggested introducing a ‘put back’ notice, allowing users to force content hosts to reinstate the original material.

This, it said, would ‘prevent abuse of the take-down regime as a means of censoring speech’.

Nominated MP and lawyer Siew Kum Hong, who blogs, said it is ‘generally a good thing for all parties involved to have their rights and obligations clearly spelt out’. He is among several in the legal community involved in Aims report.

 
Source : Straits Times - 30 Aug 2008

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Three ways to tackle Section 33

Three ways to tackle Section 33 

By Jeremy Au Yong 

THE current wide-ranging ban on party political films stifles expression. It also stands in the way of works that could contribute to well-informed, rational and insightful debate on issues.
That is the view of the Advisory Council on the Impact of New Media on Society (Aims), which says the outright ban must go.

The council suggests three ways to liberalise Section 33 of the Films Act, which regulates such works.

It wants the public to give feedback on which of the three to recommend to the Government.

The first is to narrow the scope of the law, which now takes a ‘broad, drift-net approach’.

That will mean excluding only films that distort facts and mislead the viewer. What makes the cut and what does not will be determined by an independent, non-partisan citizens’ panel.

The second option is to repeal Section 33 from the Films Act and introduce several possible conditions, such as a blackout on new political films during election season.

The third option is to repeal the law in phases, by first narrowing its scope, then moving towards a total removal when ‘the negative risks of misleading films are assessed to have been minimised’, Aims said in its report.

In putting forward these three proposals, Aims chairman Cheong Yip Seng stressed that the council had not yet made up its mind on which one was best.

‘We feel that it’s better for us not to come out and say that this is where we’re leaning. Let’s hear what the public has to say and then we’ll process what they’ve suggested and we will then decide later, certainly before the end of the year,’ he said yesterday.

Two weeks ago, in his National Day Rally speech, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had hinted at moves to ease the current ban on party political films.

Yesterday, Aims also made two other recommendations on the regulation of online political content.

It wants a wider range of online content - including podcasts, videocasts, blogs and other new media tools - to be allowed as part of election advertising.

The Parliamentary Elections Act should be amended accordingly, it said.

Aims also wants an end to the current rule that requires websites dealing with political or religious issues to register with the Media Development Authority under the Class Licensing Scheme.

Political parties should still register their sites, but individual bloggers and webmasters should be exempt, it suggested.

As its 95-page consultation paper made its way across the Web yesterday, it drew generally positive reactions.

Businessman Alex Au, who runs the political blog Yawning Bread, welcomed the suggestion to do away with registration requirements.

On party political films, he would prefer Section 33 to be repealed completely, without caveats such as a blackout period during election time.

He painted one problematic scenario that could result if a blackout period were imposed.

‘If on the eve of Nomination Day, one side puts out a video, the other side does not get a chance to reply,’ he said.

Political analyst Terence Chong from the Institute of Southeast Asia Studies lauded the proposals on political content, calling them ‘good and long overdue’.

As for the ban on party political films, he believed it should be lifted completely.

‘We have more than adequate laws already to handle any problems from such films,’ he said.

 
Source : Straits Times - 30 Aug 2008

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Singapore Govt should engage online for forums

Singapore Govt should engage online for forums 

By Lynn Lee 

FROM paying taxes to renewing road tax, the Government has led the way in offering e-services to people here.
But its approach to interacting with Singaporeans online has been decidedly more conservative.

Yesterday, it was urged to change tack, and ramp up efforts to engage an increasingly tech-savvy population, or risk putting them off as well as losing touch with them and their concerns.

This call came from a panel appointed by the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts to study the impact of new media on Singapore.

In a wide-ranging report released yesterday, the 13-member panel said that greater online engagement of Singaporeans was one of four pressing issues the Government needed to deal with, as it grapples with the changing face of new media.

To start, it could participate in online conversations, like responding to posting on blogs or online forums, said the Advisory Council on the Impact of New Media on Society (Aims) in its 95-page report. The report is available at www.aims.org.sg

Elaborating on it at a press conference, panel chairman Cheong Yip Seng said his view was that online petitions and forum letters on The Straits Times website (www.straitstimes.com) should also be taken seriously.

‘If it’s a seriously considered opinion, though posted only online, my colleagues and I feel that the Government should engage,’ said Mr Cheong, a former editor-in-chief of Singapore Press Holdings’ English and Malay Newspapers Division.

The panel also had other recommendations.

They include training civil servants to respond to online comments - a different kettle of fish from writing press statements or letters to mainstream media.

Aims also felt people would need to be shown that their online feedback is being taken seriously. One oft-heard criticism was that it went into a ‘black hole’.

Finally, the council urged the Government to actively consult young people by setting up a youth panel.

It did not specify the age of panel members or its composition, but said they could act as ‘feelers’ for the Government by highlighting latest trends in computing and social networking, threats to youth and other cyber-safety issues.

On its part, the Government would have to think through its approach to online engagement, said Mr Cheong.

‘How do you engage? Do you respond to anonymous blogs? Do you only go to places in cyberspace that are more habitable? These are important details, I feel, that the Government should carefully study,’ he said.

Institute of Policy Studies researcher Tan Tarn How likened the Government’s approach to online engagement as ‘crossing the river by feeling each stone’.

This, he said, was prudent as such initiatives are new even in the most advanced countries elsewhere.

‘Making sure the first experiments here are successes will be essential in nipping any cynicism in the bud,’ he said.

 
Source : Straits Times - 30 Aug 2008

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