SINGAPORE: Since 2018, 20 places of worship have taken up short-term tenancies or temporary occupation licences instead of renewing their 30 year leases while waiting for the Government's review of its policy on land allocation and pricing for religious organisations.
The Minister for Law and Home Affairs K Shanmugam said on Tuesday that places of worship should take the short-term option to benefit from the outcome of the review. The minister said that six places of worship still decided to proceed with a 30 year lease renewal at current market prices because of competitive bidding by religious organisations.
The Government has been in discussions with various religious organisations to determine how best to help them in the fight against the price rises that come from such bidding.
The Government is looking at the place of worship land allocation and pricing framework to see how the price can be mitigated. He said that the Government has made a lot of progress on the review, and expects to announce more details soon. State land parcels are generally sold through a competitive tender process where the highest acceptable bid becomes the land price for the specific site.
This approach does not apply to the land for mosques, which are directly alienated to the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore MUIS at market price as determined by the chief valuer. MUIS coordinates mosque development.
He said that this would result in mosque land being less expensive because there is no bidding.
The premium is currently market price for lease renewals of places of worship, determined by the chief valuer, who considers relevant transactions of religious land and adjusts for site attributes like location and land area.
The Minister said that the Government cannot unilaterally change the price of land sold for places of worship, as it is required to sell land at fair market value under the reserves protection framework.
Any change to the reserves protection framework and the approval of the President are required, he said.
The sale of state land is part of the past reserves, which is why the state land is part of the past reserves. Land sale proceeds can't be used by the Government for spending in the Budget.