Families living in about 200 blocks of Housing Board flats may have to get used to using the stairs, as lift upgrading is still not an option for these blocks.
Hidden among the HDB blocks in Lorong Ah Soo is a four-storey one with maisonette units.
It has no lifts.
And that status could well stay when the nationwide $5.5 billion Lift Upgrading Programme is wrapped up in 2014.
A total of 200 out of around 5,300 blocks built before 1990 are currently not eligible for the scheme, Senior Minister of State for National Development Grace Fu revealed last month.
She added that the HDB will continue to explore other cheaper solutions so that more blocks can become eligible.
The HDB declined to identify the blocks when asked by The Sunday Times but MPs said the board has informed them of ineligible blocks in their wards, including the one in Lorong Ah Soo.
The reason: Installing a lift at these places would severely bust the cost cap of $30,000 for each unit.
This is despite the HDB's attempts to find cheaper ways of providing lifts that serve every floor of a block.
The ineligible blocks fall largely into two categories.
The first category has segmented blocks which were designed for privacy, with typically just two units sharing a staircase.
The lack of a common corridor on most floors means several lifts need to be installed, thus bumping up costs.
A variation on this design theme are blocks that have lifts that already stop on every floor, but a minority of households have access only via the staircase.
MP Zaqy Mohamad, who has 30 such blocks in his Keat Hong ward, pointed out that the cost of installing additional lifts will be too much for the minority to bear.
The cost is typically not borne by residents whose flats are already served by lifts on their floors.
Although the Government will bear between 75 per cent and 90 per cent of the cost, depending on the residents' room type, the remaining 10 per cent to 25 per cent is shared between the town council and residents.
The second type are the low-rise blocks with few households, like the maisonette block in Lorong Ah Soo.
Block 131 houses four families on the ground level and four more families on the third level. The latter must climb four flights of steps to reach their homes.
Their MP, Madam Cynthia Phua, said the HDB had informed her in September that the 24-year-old Block 131 is not eligible for lift upgrading.
The four families on the higher floor are still hoping for a lift. 'We're getting old,' said Mrs Regina Santiago, 66, whose husband Robert Thuraisingam Karasu is 68.
Her neighbours are also getting on in age. Mr John Ong is 62, and his wife Sok Chin is 63. Mr Tan Heng Teck is 69 and his wife Mai Fah is 67.
The exceptions are Mr Vincent Ong, 45, and his wife Dorothy, 39. But they too want a lift at their floor for convenience.
The four families are willing to fork out more money than other HDB dwellers for that.
Mr John Ong, a civil servant, said households in a neighbouring block paid more than $2,000 each for their upgraded lift. 'If I've to pay $5,000 or $6,000, I can still afford it,' he said.
According to Madam Phua, blocks with maisonette units typically get the green light for lift upgrading if at least six households bear the cost.
Can the four households in Block 131 foot the bill? They have no way of knowing now because the HDB did not reveal how much more it would cost to build a lift at their block when it rejected the MP's request.
'They have to let us know how much more it costs, so we can know whether we can afford it,' said Mr Ong.
Not providing a lift would be unfair, he argued, especially after they had paid service and conservancy fees, and taxes, for more than 20 years.
If a lift proves too costly, the families suggest linking their level to a neighbouring block that is served by a lift.
Madam Phua said she would ask the HDB for details on cost and study the block's layout, to see if a link to another block is feasible.
If all else fails, the families have the option of moving out.
But they said it would be a hard choice to make as they are familiar with one another and the area.
Said Mr John Ong: 'When we bought this place, we thought this would be our final home and, in the future, there would be a lift for senior citizens.'
Over in Block 4 in Queens Road, residents feel the same way. Many have lived in their three-room flats for more than 30 years.
Their 12-storey block is segmented. Two units on each level share one of 10 staircases.
Only the units on the second, seventh and 11th levels have a common corridor and are served by lifts.
Having direct lift access was a top request from one of four elderly residents whom the ward's MP, Mr Christopher de Souza, met during house visits in September.
'As the block has 10 staircases, it would require 10 different lift shafts. I had to be honest about the fact that this would go way above the $30,000 cost cap,' he said.
Residents in their 60s and 70s who were interviewed were willing to pay $3,000 to $10,000 for a lift to stop at their floor.
There were also residents who said they could not afford to pay that much, like Madam Woon Gek Eng, 79. The former house cleaner depends on her daughter and son-in-law to pay for daily expenses. They have also hired a maid to look after her husband, aged 95, who is wheelchair-bound.
'He hasn't gone out of the house for the past three to four years because he cannot climb the stairs,' said Madam Woon, who lives on the sixth floor.
Mr de Souza said he would continue to correspond with the HDB, 'to find out if any engineering breakthroughs would allow lifts to be introduced below the cost cap'.
He added that having a lift that stops at every floor would be the 'icing on the cake' for a prime area with such amenities as the Circle Line, an upgraded market and the popular Nanyang Primary School.
Property agents said the absence of a direct lift access does not have as much of an impact on property values, compared to the level of the unit and whether it faces the west, as most want to avoid heat from the afternoon sun.
But as the population greys, they expect flat buyers to have stronger preferences for direct lift access.
PropNex chief executive Mohamed Ismail Gafoor noted: 'When the Lift Upgrading Programme is completed, leaving behind a few odd blocks, people may expect that an HDB block must have a lift that stops at every level.
'Then, some buyers will not consider flats that do not have a lift.'
Source: Sunday Times, 1 Nov 2009
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