Injecting New Life Into Old Dawson estate

Source : The Straits Times, 20 Aug 2007

SOME 10,000 new HDB and private flats are set to sprout up in the laid-back Dawson estate in Queenstown, injecting new life in the area.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong revealed this last night when talking about how old estates are still valuable in Singapore’s housing landscape, as they have great potential for redevelopment.

‘We are redeveloping selected sites within these estates one by one.

‘But where we can clear a big piece of land, we can transform the whole area and make it like a new estate.’

This process is already unfolding in Dawson, which is bounded by Commonwealth Avenue, Alexandra Road and Margaret Drive.

New flats have been built, some as part of the Selective En-bloc Redevelopment Scheme (Sers).

But pockets of empty land remain, allowing construction of new flats in three HDB precincts.

These new blocks will be integrated with a new park to be built on top of the covered Alexandra Canal, which snakes through the estate.

Showing sketches of the park made by prize-winning architects, some of whom are young people, Mr Lee joked: ‘This is public housing, not condominiums.’

These plans will turn the area around and make it look vastly different from its past facade, when it was home to flats built by the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) - the predecessor of the HDB, said Mr Lee.

But along with the new will be an effort to preserve old landmarks, said Mr Lee.

These will include the wet market along Commonwealth Avenue, and the plaza at the nearby town centre.

‘We will keep these, because it gives you a sense of history and place, and we will integrate these into the new design,’ said Mr Lee.

Retaining the memories and character of the place in the new developments will give ’something extra’ to bring people back, said Mr Lee.

The new developments are something chemist New Chee Wee, 27, who lives with his parents in a four-room flat in the area, looks forward to.

‘It is a quiet area to live in but that’s not a bad thing because its peaceful.

‘Still, we miss some of the typical things you find in an HDB estate, like… many provision shops. It will be nice if we can get more of these when the new flats are built.’