Getting Vers right is crucial to preserving the Singaporean idea of home

More than an exercise in renewal, it must be about giving people a choice and the voice to help shape the future of their own housing estates.

- Christopher Gee

In the next few decades, a growing number of HDB flats will edge towards the end of their 99-year leases. Lease decay will soon test not only Singapore's housing model but also its social compact.

For most of Singapore's history, urban renewal has been a selective, top-down exercise. The Selective En bloc Redevelopment Scheme (Sers) allowed the state to acquire old flats, compensate owners, and move them into new homes with fresh leases.

Sers covered fewer than 5 per cent of HDB flats and it was driven top-down rather than by residents. That approach isn't suitable for a renewal effort that could touch virtually every estate in the country.

Most Singaporeans live in Housing Board flats, many built during the construction boom of the 1970s to 1990s. With more than 1.25 million flats approaching the end of their leases, the problem is not technical but existential. It touches the very idea of home, and with it the foundations of Singapore's social stability.

The announcement of the Voluntary Early Redevelopment Scheme (Vers) represents a break from the past. Instead of compulsion, it rests on consent. When a supermajority of residents in ageing blocks agree, the precinct can be sold back to HDB for redevelopment.

But the real promise of Vers and its success depend on whether it becomes a genuine exercise in collective choice – a process that empowers communities to shape not just their replacement flats but also the future of the neighbourhoods they call home.

That has to be carefully managed and made central to this exercise as a smooth passage isn't guaranteed.

Implementing Vers will not be without challenges. Achieving the necessary supermajority for each buyback will require careful negotiation and consensus building among residents and other stakeholders.