Ms Indranee Rajah, Minister in the Prime Minister's Office and Second Minister for National Development & Finance helps us join the dots behind Singapore’s urban planning and how that fits into the bigger picture of the city’s longer-term development goals.

1:36 - We saw robust discussion in Parliament at the National Development Ministry’s Committee of Supply debate. What stood out for you? 

2:11 - One particular worry that came through from several MPs that they highlighted - is the market impact of higher housing grants on the price of resale flats, especially in light of the buoyant resale market and recent concerns over affordability of resale flats. How much can property cooling measures help in curtailing prices?

3:40 - Minister, this time round, we saw a slew of housing initiatives targeted at young families. Can you give us a sense of the feedback you’ve gotten from young parents - how have their needs evolved and to what extent do the initiatives address their key concerns?

5:17 - Moving on to another area of interest is the seniors. And this is an area I'm finding quite interesting because it's around what's called the Community Care apartments. This is a joint offering by MND, MOH and HDB, that expands the housing options for seniors, so it involves integrating the senior-friendly housing with care services. So there's a pilot project and we can see it happening in Bedok later this year, a third one, and later on in the pipeline of other locations as well. So what factors will the MND be taking into account when deciding the location or some of these pilots?

7:16 - Let's talk about the bigger plan in terms of land use. The Long-Term Plan Review, which sets out our goals in the next 50 years, concluded last year, and we’re now heading into the next bound of planning - the Master Plan Review, which will cover detailed land use and plans to help us get there. You’ve said that this will center on liveability. How exactly would you define that keeping in mind evolving needs? And could you let us in on examples of what some of these plans might entail? 

9:52 - Minister, you alluded to this a bit earlier, how we are making a push towards becoming greener in some sense, because you've detailed some plans to raise targets in lines of efforts to restore nature into our urban landscape, in particular, to restore 80 hectares of forests, coastal and marine habitats by 2030. Can you give us a sense, how do you approach this challenge because we've got a backdrop in Singapore that is increasingly becoming more built-up but at the same time we're trying to find space for all this greenery.

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Presenters: Lynlee Foo, Ryan Huang

Producer: Yeo Kai Ting (ykaiting@sph.com.sg)