From hopes to hopelessness

More than 3 months since the AMK SERS annoucement was made, sentiments from AMK SERS residents generally still filled with a sense of unfairness and slight anger. You can still feel it in the air when words such as ‘upset‘, ‘complaints‘, ‘disgruntled‘, ‘caught the government somewhat off guard‘, ‘storm in a teacup‘, are still being used in media today.

The petition signed by more than 300 residents were mostly dismissed by the authority. To put things into proper perspectives, recently HDB’s Facebook published 4 pictures with bold wordings – JUST FACTS

Throughout this entire SERS saga, many AMK SERS residents began to see how the authority are constantly sending mixed signals and not providing general public the full context of the case in AMK SERS.

For example in Just Facts #1, after the announcement of the AMK SERS news on 7 April 2022 many AMK residents including myself asked HDB if the Cross-Island Line was taken into consideration of the overall compensation. It was a legit question as we saw on the HDB’s compensation brochure issued to every residents indicating that the evaluation will only factor in past transaction prices of comparable resale flats and various entities such as height, facing, balance lease and extent of renovations. There was no mention of nearby amenities such as the upcoming Tavistock MRT Cross Island Line.

This was even confirmed again during the 1 to 1 meeting with HDB officers at Toa Payoh Hub.

And that was why one of the petition items we listed and signed by 300 over residents wanted the authority to consider the Cross-Island Line as part of the compensation package.

So when every AMK SERS read the Facebook JUST FACT #1, everyone was just amused how fast the wind direction changed.

JUST FACT #2 is simply puzzling for most AMK SERS residents.

For example the block 564 with lease commencing on 1985. When it reaches it’s 99-yr lease, it would had been 2083.

Yes one may argued that residents that do not need a 99-yr flat can opt for the new 50-yr new flat. According to the HDB SERS brochure, new flat completion date is around Q4-2027 – Q1-2028.

So by taking a new 50-yr flat with lease starting in 2028, the lease would naturally ends at 2077.

And that raises a flag among some residents thinking if my current flat is till 2083 and even though I opted for a 50-yr flag with a lease ending 2077, what happened to the remaining 6 years? Will that be part of the compensation?

Can I extend the lease of the new flat when I decided to do so after I moved in?

The standard answer currently as it stands is that the authority is still ‘carefully studying‘ as of 7th July 2022. 3 months after the announcement.

Well, that indicates how ‘well thought out’ the AMK SERS project was. LOL.

JUST FACT #3 – Excuse me, please stop playing with words such as same replacement types. Thanks you.

One of the pain points highlighted by AMK SERS residents is that we were all forced to downgrade one way or another.

For those who had been living comfortably in a fully paid 4-room 92 sqm unit, it does not makes any sense for HDB to say ‘Hey listen, you can get a new 4-room unit at 99-yr for free. Just that it will be smaller than your current unit.’

Wait a minute, if you can build a 80 sqm 4-room, what is stopping you from building a 70 sqm 4-room in future and getting 4-room tenants to downgrade their flats?

We know that as tenants, HDB has every right to evict us. But compensate us fairly as this has been our familiar home for 606 families.

As highlighted in the recent article, HDB moved us to a ulu plot of land that’s further from all forms of amenities and transport. This is not something that we made up. Even non-residents also can see for themselves.

And this brings us to JUST FACT #4.

Yes all past SERS including recent Marsling all had one replacement site which is much closer to the MRT. But WHY the heck are you giving the AUG 2022 AMK BTO that can house 890 units to outsiders rather than your own 606 AMK SERS residents?

And if using HDB’s JUST FACT #3’s logic of most “AMK SERS residents do not have to top up if they buy a replacement flat with a fresh 99-year lease, of the same or smaller flat type”, why not just provide that AMK Central plot of land as replacement site? Surely going by your logic, affordability is not a problem right, HDB?

And this question was bought up by residents during Minister Desmond Lee’s visit on 2nd July 2022. Want to guess what was his answer?

Yup, his main concern was residents can’t afford that new site as prices of new BTO is estimated to be higher.

But wait, so what was JUST FACT #3 talking about?