Although the government has been steadily releasing land sites for worship spaces under the Government Land Sales (GLS) Programme, many religious groups find such plots too big for their needs and unaffordable.
As a result, the Ministry of National Development (MND) is exploring alternative solutions to help those groups find suitable premises, including possibly co-sharing and going high-rise, said National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan in a blog post today.
One concept being looked at is the Multi-User Place of Worship Facility, which co-locates multiple places of worship of the same religion in a multi-storey development.
“Under this arrangement, spaces can be leased or rented by small religious groups which will share common facilities like car parks, prayer halls and classrooms,” noted Mr Khaw.
Several Chinese temples and churches have already indicated the need for such a development and MND is calling for proposals from these groups on how such a concept might work.
Currently, new HDB estates are built with land set aside for places of worship, making temples, mosques and churches easily accessible to worshippers.
“We have also allowed some places of worship to redevelop and intensify, if the site context allows, and allowed some limited and non-exclusive use of commercial and industrial premises for religious worship,” Mr Khaw added.
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Singapore Editor of PropertyGuru Group, wrote this story. To contact him about this or other stories email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
