Debated in Parliament on 9 Sep 2014.
Mr Baey Yam Keng asked the Minister for National Development (a) what is the reason why HDB rental flats do not come with window grilles; (b) whether tenants who install their own window grilles need not remove them upon their vacation of the flat when the grilles are still in good working condition; and (c) whether HDB can review this policy to reduce the cost for rental tenants.
Mr Png Eng Huat asked the Minister for National Development whether HDB will consider making window grilles a standard safety feature for rental flats.
Madam, may I have your permission to take Question Nos 16 and 17 together?
Yes, please.
Madam, HDB does not provide window grilles as a standard feature in its flats, whether sold or rental, as they are not considered essential by all households. However, rental tenants may install their own window grilles. If they are unable to afford to do so and have safety concerns, HDB will help to install the grilles on a case-by-case basis.
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Rental tenants who have installed their own grilles do not need to remove them when they move out of the rental flat if the grilles are still in good condition.
Mr Baey.
Thank you, Madam. I can understand that HDB flats are designed with the basic necessities or essential necessities to keep costs down. But I would like the Ministry to see window grilles in high-rise living as a safety requirement rather than non-essential item, especially for low-income families who need help with our rental housing scheme. For these families earning less than $1,500, and especially with young children, even a few hundred dollars can be a lot of money.
I would like to ask the Minister of State what is the proportion of rental tenants with young children and what is the proportion who have sought approval to either install window grilles on their own or that HDB has helped to install window grilles for them at HDB's cost. What is the application procedure and what is the success rate?
Madam, let me contextualise the availability of grilles in rental flats. Although I have mentioned that we do not put it as a standard feature today, historically, rental flats which were mainly built in the 1960s and 1970s were originally designed without window grilles. Tenants who wished to install it at that time can do so at their own cost. But over the years, as part of the Government's efforts to improve the living conditions of our rental flat tenants, window grilles were included as one of the improvement items and installed during the various upgrading programmes. For example – rental flats – the Main Upgrading Programme, the Project LIFE rental flats upgrading project.
Households with young children generally welcome the provision of these window grilles for safety reasons. However, some tenants also provide feedback that the window grilles caused a "caged in" kind of feeling in the smaller flats and hindered or obstructed some of their activities, for example, especially for the elderly ones, who have difficulties when they want to hang out their clothes. Therefore, HDB, after having upgraded some of these rental flats with window grilles, in 2007, we had a review and we decided to exclude window grilles as essential items for fitting in rental flats for the following reasons: one, is as mentioned, not all rental tenants need window grilles and it is consistent with the non-provision of grilles in purchase and rental flats and, at the same time, based on the feedback that we have received.
The new rental flats which were built after 2007, when we resumed our rental building programme, were not installed with grilles. With all the upgraded rental flats today, with an existing stock of 109 blocks, we do have about 74% of them that are already provided with
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window grilles, meaning that three-quarters of our rental flat tenants are already living in rental flats with window grilles.
Mr Baey asked about the proportion of our tenants who are living with children below the age of 12. Today, about 15% of our rental flat tenants are made up of families or households with children below the age of 12. So, the number is quite small.
We had another review recently, in April 2014. HDB decided to install window grilles for deserving households on a case-by-case basis if the tenant meets one of the two following guidelines: one, is that the family with young children aged below 12. For those who meet this criterion, HDB will assist them in installing the window grilles. At the same time, households where family members with medical conditions, for example, hyper activity, those with intellectual disability, or hallucinations, and there are safety concerns for these families.
To date, we have received about 60 requests for such cases. In the last two years, HDB has assisted about 27 cases and installed the grilles for them. The others who do not meet the criteria, we asked them to seek help from FSOs, VWOs, because they are not seen as families with young children at risk or maybe having safety concerns.
Henceforth, from April this year, families with children below the age of 12 will be assisted. But as I have mentioned earlier, we do have a stock of rental flats that are already installed with grilles, and if those flats are available for tenancy, we will actually offer those to meet the needs and match the profile of families or households with children below the age of 12.
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