Sengkang site back to temple

Romesh Navaratnarajah8 May 2015

Sengkang West columbarium

The Ministry of National Development (MND) has signed a mutual termination agreement with Eternal Pure Land (EPL), the winning tenderer for the Place of Worship (PW) site at Fernvale Link, as its 2014 bid was not in line with the government’s original plan for the site.

EPL initially intended to build columbarium facilities on the site.

This was the first time a PW site had been awarded to a company that isn’t affiliated to a religious organisation. The government had meant for the land parcel to be awarded to a religious group for the development of a Chinese temple.

Under the agreement, the government will refund EPL the full land premium and associated taxes and duties which EPL paid to the government. MND said the refund is fair as the contract was terminated.

But EPL remains keen to explore projects where it can meet the growing needs of end-of-life services in Singapore, and has since submitted a proposal for a pilot project involving columbarium facilities which has been assessed by Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA).

As part of the agreement and given Singapore’s ageing society and the need for such end-of-life services, the government has decided to release a small plot to EPL to pilot the project.

The land will be zoned for cemetery use and priced at market value based on columbarium use as determined by the Chief Valuer.

Meanwhile, the government will re-tender the Fernvale Link site to restore the original planning intent of a Chinese temple.

The Sengkang temple case came to light at the start of the year after several would-be-residents of the nearby Fernvale Lea Build-to-Order (BTO) project requested refunds from the housing board as they felt plans for such columbarium facilities were not made clear.

Image: Artist’s impression of the Sengkang columbarium. (Photo by LIFE CORPORATION LIMITED)

 

Romesh Navaratnarajah, Singapore Editor at PropertyGuru, wrote this story. To contact him about this or other stories email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg

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