Monday, October 19, 2009

15 Nee Soon South blocks in line for lift upgrade

MORE than 1,300 households in Nee Soon South may get lift landings on every floor and a facelift to their estate soon - if at least three in four residents from the selected blocks agree to it.

The households, from 15 blocks of HDB flats in Yishun Street 81, were selected for the Lift Upgrading Programme (LUP) and Neighbourhood Renewal Programme (NRP).

The two projects cost $23 million in all - $4 million for the NRP and $19million for the LUP.

Announcing the new projects yesterday, Ms Lee Bee Wah, an MP for Ang Mo Kio GRC and adviser to Nee Soon South grassroots organisations, said that more than $50million has already been spent on revamping the lifts in Nee Soon South.

The 15 blocks are the last batch of flats to be selected under the programme, she added.

Giving an idea of the progress, Ms Lee said 32 blocks in the area had already upgraded their lifts, while another 61 blocks are in the process of doing so.

Urging residents yesterday to agree to the projects, Ms Lee said: 'In the three years I have been here, I get many residents coming up to me, asking me when they would get their lifts upgraded.'

She added that many residents in the Nee Soon South area were elderly folk and the lift upgrading would go a long way towards helping them.

While she was unable to provide figures, she pointed out that the declining enrolment of children in PAP Community Foundation kindergartens in the area was a sign of the ageing population in the neighbourhood.

As for the NRP, a key HDB initiative to renew middle-aged towns, she said residents can get to decide the improvements they want to their neighbourhood, from new covered linkways to playgrounds.

Mrs Ruby Rosemarie Sylvester, who lives in one of these selected blocks, said she was looking forward to having a lift at her floor level so that her elderly parents can visit her more often.

'They have so much difficulty with the stairs that they visit me only once a year, during Christmas,' she said.


Source, Straits Times 19 Oct 2009

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