SINGAPORE - A new grant of up to $30,000 will be available to residents who have medical or mobility issues, and live in HDB blocks without a lift that stops on every floor.
This Lift Access Housing Grant will be offered to those who live in blocks that are ineligible for the Housing Board's Lift Upgrading Programme (LUP) to help offset the cost of buying another new or resale flat with direct lift access.
Announcing the grant on Wednesday (March 4), National Development Minister Lawrence Wong said there remain about 150 blocks across Singapore where lift upgrading is not possible, either due to excessive costs or existing technical or site constraints.
He was responding to Mr Ong Teng Koon (Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC), Mr Png Eng Huat (Hougang) and Mr Gan Thiam Poh (Ang Mo Kio GRC), who asked about help for residents without direct lift access.
For some of these blocks, lift upgrading is "just not technically feasible, regardless of the cost", Mr Wong said.
For many others, the costs far exceed the cost cap of $30,000 per household, he noted.
"We're talking about costs that can be more than $200,000 per household, as Mr Png Eng Huat said, enough to buy another HDB flat," he said.
While HDB will explore new technical methods to bring down costs, it is more cost-effective for residents who urgently need direct lift access to move to another flat, he added.
The issue of lift upgrading for blocks without direct lift access had come up earlier this year, when the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) lobbied for it at blocks 115 and 119 in Marsiling Rise.
In a Facebook post, Mr Ong Teng Koon, the MP for the ward, said he remains optimistic that government agencies can find a way to overcome the present cost and technical constraints.
The LUP was introduced in 2001 for blocks built before 1990, which did not have lifts that stopped at every floor.
When the programme began, there were more than 5,300 HDB blocks without direct lift access.
This number has been whittled down to the remaining 150 blocks after the HDB introduced technical solutions like machine-room-less technology, which negates the need for the machinery required to operate the lift to be in a separate enclosed room above the lift shaft.
HDB also installed smaller "home lifts", which can accommodate a wheelchair and one to two standing persons, in some low-rise blocks.
