16th Dec 2008 Cover note to Mr Lim Swee Say

Dear Mr Lim Swee Say,
Thank you for taking the time to meet with us last evening for a second time and thank you for your advice.
Enclosed please find our email sent this evening to Minister Lim Hng Kiang.
We have enclosed a comparative table of current Residential Rental Renewal Rates being practiced by SLA, LTA and JTC. The data clearly shows that at a time when the Singapore Government is expounding to businesses big and small to do all they can to help their employees by looking to cost-saving measures first before facing the last resort of retrenchment; JTC, our very own government agency taking care of our residential project is deviating significantly from this stance of social and civic responsibility during this time of economic hardship. At this bleak economic window; SLA and LTA are only imposing 14-15% rental increases on their existing residential tenants; JTC on the other hand is imposing 76-80% rental increases on their existing residents at this window.
The average tenancy tenure of the residents being affected directly is 19 years. Some even as long as 32 years. These are people's homes we are talking about; not merely office space and office furniture.
The 4 requests we have made to Minister Lim Hng Kiang are as follows
1. For JTC to officially take receipt of our Community Petition (signed by over 190 residents) representing the majority voice of the Residents of Chip Bee Gardens. Many petitioners have taken the time to elaborate and expand in the petition on their personal appeals.
· The residents had chosen the path of the petition as we felt it was the most democratic and fair to assess the majority sentiment of our community. To date, JTC has chosen NOT to acknowledge this petition.
· Failing which we feel we will have no further avenue but to escalate to higher authorities and rally the support of the press and the public.
2. For JTC to extend the current 18-20 Dec legal deadlines being given to existing residents (those with tenancies ending Oct, Nov & Dec 2008) to sign their new tenancy agreements or face legal penalties. Many affected residents had seeked JTC's support for a temporary tenancy freeze until an amicable solution could be reached with JTC on the Official Petition and Appeal we mentioned in (1). These residents were given very short notices of 7-10 days only to make this very significant life-impacting decision.
· Given that a resolution is unlikely to be reached by the deadlines imposed, we seek your compassionate consideration to request JTC to allow these residents to extend the deadline till the end of January 2009 and allow these affected residents to continue paying their old rent until a solution is concluded.
3. In light of the depressed economic environment and the severe economic tsunami we are all going to face in 2009; suggest to JTC to either freeze any increase for at least a 1-year renewal window or to revise the rental renewal rate for existing residents by 15-20% (in line with the more moderate increases being shown by SLA and LTA above) instead of the current massive 76-80% increase being imposed by JTC on the existing residents.
· We appreciate that JTC wants to bring all the properties in Chip Bee Gardens up to prevailing market rates and as residents we are not fighting that. All we seek is for JTC to please work with the existing long-term residents and perhaps develop 2-4 year renewal plans that gradually takes the rent up to market rates. This will enable affected tenants that to have sufficient time to be able to plan and absorb this additional financial burden in such a challenging economic time and/or seek alternative accommodation.
4. For existing tenants that are not able to meet even the revised and/or gradual rental rate increases seeked in (3), we request for JTC to give them at least 3 months notice at their previous rental rates to allow them adequate time to be able to find other suitable homes to move out to.

Your compassionate assistance on working with Minister Lim Hng Kiang on the above is sincerely appreciated.
Yours sincerely,

Residents of Chip Bee Gardens