ONE innovative solution to meeting the nation’s expected shortage of land is to go underground and carve out spaces.
These subterranean land banks would be located mainly near transport hubs, according to the Economic Strategies Committee (ESC) report yesterday.
As Singapore plans ahead for a city that ‘remains extremely liveable even as we grow, we have to make more efficient use of our land (and)… this will call for bold and imaginative urban planning and redevelopment’, said the report.
Senior Minister of State for National Development Grace Fu expanded on the idea yesterday, saying that the Government has to identify new industrial estates to serve new industries.
It could create basement spaces with new underground infrastructure, and land banks around our rail network, said Ms Fu, who co-chairs the ESC sub-committee on land.
She said the Government has found ‘tremendous potential for us to create infrastructure underground already’ during the process of developing the rail system.
‘This means that there’s land that can be created underground. We may not need to tap (it) any time soon but if we’re to do it, as we are developing the infrastructure underground, it’s getting the land ready for us,’ she said.
The Government also wants to develop a masterplan to ensure that underground and ground spaces are developed in sync with each other to ensure that the maximum potential is realised. It is setting up the National Geology Office to collate information on underground development.
The Government will also develop a subterranean legal and valuation framework that will benefit private and public sector efforts in developing underground spaces, added Ms Fu.
Investment will be pumped into research and development and cavern level test beds to gain experience in underground development.
Going underground is not alien to Singapore. The industrial developer and landlord, JTC Corporation, has started work on the first phase of the Jurong Rock Cavern, the first underground oil storage facility to be built in South-east Asia.
Industry observers said yesterday that going underground is challenging from a cost viewpoint.
Mr Ashvinkumar Kantilal, president of the Singapore Institute of Architects, said developers only go into basements when required because of the cost.
‘The uses of these underground spaces also have to be very specific,’ he said.
Perhaps a leap in technology will lower costs to allow Singapore to maximise the potential of such spaces, he added.
Source: Straits Times, 2 Feb 2010
No comments:
Post a Comment