Debated in Parliament on 13 Sep 2016.
Mr Desmond Choo asked the Minister for National Development (a) whether the Government can help existing office building owners which have used up the permissible gross floor area to look into unused common spaces to install public family rooms; and (b) how it can further encourage the provision of lactation facilities in new office buildings.
Mdm Speaker, the Building and Construction Authority (BCA), through the Accessibility Code, already requires buildings frequented by families to have family-friendly features.
There are also financial grants from BCA and the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) to offset the construction cost of such spaces. Specifically, BCA's Accessibility Fund covers up to 40% of construction costs of family-friendly features, such as lactation rooms and accessible family washrooms. Specifically for developing lactation facilities, building owners and developers can also tap on MOM's WorkPro Work-Life Grant which covers half of the costs, up to a cap of $20,000.
Mr Desmond Choo.
I thank the Minister for his answer. I would like to check what is the take-up rate to date by existing and new buildings for the grants, and how many of them have lactation and family-friendly facilities.
Madam, for new buildings, in a way they are already covered by the Code. And for new buildings, most of them are doing quite well in terms of having family-friendly features because there is an Accessibility Code putting in place certain requirements on building owners.
For existing building owners, that is a bit more challenging because they will have to put in new investments to refurbish and upgrade or update their buildings in order to bring them in line with these new requirements. The grants are there. The take-up rate is admittedly quite low, and we are continuing to review not just the grants but also the gross floor area (GFA) incentive schemes to see what else we can do, to encourage building owners to put in place these measures.
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