CC6 • THEEDGE SINGAPORE
| MARCH 15, 2010
COVERSTORY CITY&COUNTRY
lifestyle homes
Purchase of the 12-unit strata bungalow development, Chancery Five, in line with strategy of developing landed homes with lifestyle elements
PICTURES: SAMUEL ISAAC CHUA/THE EDGE SINGAPORE
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Chancery Five is a 12-unit strata bungalow development that The Straits Trading Co acquired a fortnight ago
| STORIES BY CECILIA CHOW |
I
Teng: In the context of land-scarce Singapore, strata landed housing allows people to enjoy owning a landed property that comes with a lifestyle component
n the neighbourhood of Chancery Lane and Mount Rosie, many of the old pre-war single-storey bungalows sitting on large land plots have disappeared to make way for new double- or triple-storey contemporary-style bungalows or strata landed housing projects. “It’s such a pity, really; this used to be such a quiet neighbourhood,” says Leon Lee, a property agent who specialises in resale properties and is, incidentally, putting on the resale market one of 12 strata semi-detached houses in One Mount Rosie. It is located at the corner of Chancery Lane and Mount Rosie and completed just last March. For owners who have been sitting on these properties, however, some of which were purchased more than 50 years ago for a mere $50,000, it is an ideal time to cash out, as prices of bungalows in the area are fetching
at least $10 million today. No wonder, then, that many have sold their sites for redevelopment, particularly to niche developers. Take, for instance, the original single-storey bungalow at 26 Chancery Lane. It was sitting on a 26,641 sq ft freehold site and changed hands twice in the past three years. According to the URA database of caveats, which dates back to January 1995, the property first changed hands in July 2006 for $8.38 million, or $315 psf, and a second time just last June for $13.5 million, or $507 psf. The original bungalow has been torn down and, according to the notice on the hoarding, two new conventional bungalows will be built on the site. Construction has already begun. Across the street from 26 and 28 Chancery Lane is a strata bungalow development with 12 bungalows on a 27,600 sq ft freehold site, called Chancery Five. The developer of Chancery Five, Tertius Development
Pte Ltd, owned by Enny Widjaja and Lee Kong Hian, managed to receive URA’s permission for the project just before a new ruling took effect in February last year. According to the ruling, strata landed housing projects will be approved only on sites that measure at least 40,000 sq ft. Another stakeholder in the area that also managed to receive URA’s approval for a strata landed housing project just before the deadline is said to be Casuarina Properties, controlled by the Lee Foundation and members of the Lee family, and which has permission to build a development at Mount Rosie with 191 strata terrace houses and two semi-detached houses on a large parcel. Construction at Chancery Five is about to begin, and Tertius had rolled out the property on the market five months ago when the property arm of public-listed conglomerate The Straits Trading Co (STC) swooped in with an offer to purchase the en-
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