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First, let me congratulate URA on the progress of its new office building. Today’s topping-out ceremony marks another significant milestone in URA’s efforts to guide Singapore into a world-class city.

This new building is specially designed to provide a conducive environment to enhance customer services. Customers will enjoy the convenience of a one-stop service, with centralised counters handling all URA transactions. A more pleasant and efficient work environment will also be created for URA staff to achieve a higher quality service for their customers.

The functionality of a building is an important factor that determines the worthiness of a building. A building that does not serve its occupants and visitors efficiently and effectively would have failed in its purpose of existence. In developing Singapore into a world-class city, our modern buildings should incorporate state-of-the-art features such as high-speed lifts and other intelligent building features. There should also be inter-building links and covered public spaces to create an integrated and user - friendly environment.

Another important factor that enhances the building’s value is the aesthetics. What makes a building stands out is its architectural beauty. One of URA’s strategies in developing Singapore into a City of Excellence is to build a distinctive and vibrant skyline.

Over the years, URA has been encouraging our developers and architects to enhance the beauty of their buildings by incorporating creative roofscape designs. Currently, many of our buildings have flat roofs which are used for water tanks, and mechanical and electrical facilities. Trellises or other open structures are built to cover these facilities. These are dull and unattractive structures. Moreover, they do not provide sufficient coverage for the facilities on the rooftop. All these unsightly things on the rooftop certainly mar the beauty of a building.

Some buildings have rooftop gardens for the enjoyment of the occupants and visitors. However, there are no sheltered pavilions to provide shade for the users.

It is understandable why developers are reluctant to build full roof covers. This is because with a full roof cover, the space underneath is regarded as Gross Floor Area (GFA) and developers will have to incur greater GFA costs. URA has, therefore, reviewed its guidelines on the computation of GFA for buildings.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce that from today, covered rooftop areas, public thoroughfares and covered public spaces will be excluded from the Gross Floor Area (GFA) computation for a building. This means that developers will have more usable floor area within the building proper. For existing buildings, some of these areas which were previously included in the GFA computation, will also now be exempted.

Developers will now have greater incentives to provide full roof covers or build pavilions as part of the rooftop landscape features. They can also incorporate sky terraces into their building design. All these can now be done without incurring greater GFA costs.

With this new provision in place, I hope developers and designers can take on the challenge of creating innovative and beautiful roof designs to further enhance Singapore’s skyline.

I also urge building owners to provide pedestrian linkages and plazas which will bring us a step closer towards a pedestrian-friendly and world-class city. Singaporeans will be able to enjoy a pleasant walk away from the sun and rain. We could move from one building to another without having to step onto the road. With more plazas in the offing, people can congregate and unwind, thereby setting the scene for a city buzzing with life and activity.

I commend URA on its efforts to facilitate the private sector in creating not just functional, but also aesthetic and user-friendly buildings. This has been one of URA’s strengths. URA continually tunes in to the needs of its customers and fine-tunes its policies to ensure that they are up-to-date, pro-business and contributes towards making Singapore a world-class city.

I wish URA and its staff every success in realising our vision of turning Singapore into a Tropical City of Excellence.