The Housing and Development Board (HDB) announced on 9 October that buyers of apartments at Waterway Sunrise II, a BTO project in Punggol, would be paid after the project’s completion was delayed by more than a year.
“It’s the only project, out of the existing 94 BTO projects, that has had a delay of more than one year,” according to HDB.
Waterway Sunrise II, which was completed in February 2017, consists of seven buildings with a total of 1,014 apartments. Originally, it was scheduled to be finished between the first and second quarters of 2021.
Nevertheless, the project’s completion date has been pushed back to Q1 and Q2 of 2022 as a result of the “poor performance and eventual collapse” of the project’s original contractor, Lian Ho Lee Construction, which occurred in August of 2020.
HDB has appointed a new contractor, namely, Expand Construction, to work on the project starting in October 2020.
However, difficulties resulting from COVID-19, such as interruptions in material supply and personnel shortages as a result of the strengthening of border controls, have resulted in even more delays.
Waterway Sunrise II is due to be finished 6 to 9 months upon their Delivery Possession Date (DPD). The Delivery Possession Date (DPD) is the legally binding contract terms date by which HDB is required to hand over possession of the flat under the Agreement for Lease, according to the Housing and Development Board (HDB).
“As a result, HDB will provide compensation to unit purchasers for the inconvenience.”
Currently, the updated likely completion dates for Waterway Sunrise II vary from the fourth quarter of 2022 to the first quarter of 2023, resulting in a total waiting period of approximately five and a half years.
HDB has contacted the unit purchasers of Waterway Sunrise II to notify them of the recent developments and will be continuing to do work proceeds.
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According to HDB, to minimize additional difficulty, all Waterway Sunrise II unit purchasers would be reimbursed the maximum compensation amount they are entitled to under the COVID-19 (Temporary Measures) Act without the need to submit claims or evidence of expenditures.
Families with children who have yet to seek alternative provisional housing options with family and friends, relatives, or on the marketplace can pertain to transitional housing under the Parenthood Provisional Housing Scheme (PPHS), which is funded by the Department of Housing, Communities, and Local Government.
The HDB has said that it would consider suspending the loss as well as yet another waiting period for impacted flat purchasers who want to terminate their BTO apartment booking in order to acquire a resale flat owing to an urgent housing need.
Meanwhile, HDB has said that it would continue to collaborate closely with Building to accelerate construction work.
This would include engaging with the contractors to acquire a second premade source of supply and diversifying existing sources of premade elements to overcome interruptions in the company’s precast supply caused by Malaysia’s Movement Control Orders, among other things.
Meanwhile, HDB is prioritizing personnel availability for this project to assist the contractor with expediting construction activities while ensuring that appropriate safety control safeguards are in place on-site, according to the organization.
“We will strive to do all we can to assist the contractor in completing the project as quickly as possible so that our unit purchasers may receive their key and settle into their residential properties as quickly as feasible.”
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