Let's keep Katong's legacy alive

Familiar Katong landmarks continue to be under threat even as a new draft master plan for future land use from the Government opens up exciting living options islandwide and the preservation of neighbourhoods such as Holland Village, Jalan Kayu and Serangoon Gardens.

There is no mention of further efforts to protect the Katong/Joo Chiat area, which has lost a fair bit of its old-world charm over the years.

For example, along the stretch of East Coast Road from its junction with Haig Road to its junction with Joo Chiat Road, two landmarks have undergone or will undergo a transformation, even though parts will be conserved.

The Red House Bakery, once famous for its puffs and cakes, has been given a fresh coat of paint, and an extension - housing apartments - has come up behind the red shophouse.

Property agents are now selling units in this development, with the pitch that residents will live right smack in an area rich with Peranakan history, architecture and food.

That might change since a big plot of land, which once housed the Joo Chiat police station, is now the subject of a tender after the Urban Redevelopment Authority received a bid that meets the minimum selling price.

Word is that a mixed-use project, combining hotel, retail and residential elements, is likely to spring up.

The iconic police station building cannot be torn down, but the cluster of two-storey buildings behind it will not escape the wrecking ball.

If that happens, yet another patch of Katong will lose its link to the past while traffic flow is likely to worsen - motorists are already fuming over the gridlock that set in after I12 Katong, which replaced the sedate Katong Mall, opened.

The area has witnessed a rash of new condos born from an en-bloc craze that prompted residents of old estates such as Rose Garden, Maryland Park and Maryland Point to sell out for big profits.

That is their prerogative, but the police station plot is state land - it would have been nice if the Government had not earmarked the site for yet another commercial project.

The area is already home to two big hotels - Grand Mercure Roxy and Village Hotel Katong - as well as the Parkway Parade and I12 Katong malls.

Of course, balancing competing interests - those who champion change and those who want to keep things as they are - is a delicate exercise.

Singaporeans now want greater input into how their neighbourhood shapes up because, in a fast-changing world, a neighbourhood can seem like an oasis to them - something cherished, intimate and special.

Two recent initiatives should help reassure those who lament the increasing transformation of their neighbourhoods that the authorities are now more willing to take their feedback into account.

Folks in Tiong Bahru, for instance, can now rest assured that applications to open yet more food outlets in their precinct will be rejected, unless the previous premises were also used as an F&B place.

While chic cafes, spiffy restaurants and unique bakeries do carry some appeal and gentrify an old estate, they also come at a cost, creating parking woes and noise issues as well as hastening the exit of the tailor shops and provision shops from an earlier era.

Over in Little India, the authorities have nixed any massive redevelopment of Serangoon Plaza for fear of triggering more traffic jams and changing the area's low-rise identity.

These interventions from the authorities are to be welcomed and might also deter speculators who buy up older buildings hoping to turn them into cash cows.

So as I drive by the old Joo Chiat police station, I wonder if the new owners could be persuaded to keep it for educational or civic purposes, and redevelop only the rest of the plot.

And I keep my fingers crossed that another landmark, Katong Shopping Centre, whose design resembles that of People's Park Complex, will not suffer an en-bloc fate as well and vanish into the pages of history.

kengfatt@sph.com.sg

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