Affordable and Quality Public Housing for Singapore: An Iterative MCDM Planning Approach

Ang Rui Xiu

Abstract

In Singapore, public housing is managed by the Housing and Development Board (HDB). Public housing provision stipulates a temporary leasehold for only 99 years. Flats were primarily built to provide affordable housing. Yet, the boom in the residential property market has sparked debates for many years as to whether housing is now priced beyond the reach of the average Singaporean, and whether the market is too speculative. These concerns have become a political issue, particularly when speculation become excessive, as the government had to re-examine housing measures in attempt to curb speculations. The processes for implementing policies and reaching sustainable decisions are likely to become more difficult to put in place. This can be the result of poor research methods, the inherent complexity of the context and its uncertainties. It is often a challenge for national policy-makers in implementing policies. Hence, decision making techniques is necessary in such complex real-life scenarios to ensure that the correct decisions are made. This paper proposes a multiple step decision support process for decision making in such complex situations. It also allows decision makers to evaluate the effectiveness of their policies.

The proposed decision support process starts from identifying appropriate alternatives for the subject of interest. Subsequently, relevant criteria affecting the goal will be identified under the specific context being studied. The problem will be mapped into a hierarchical structure adopting Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique. Thereafter, decision maker will decide if the interactions amongst criteria are significant and whether there is a need to reflect these interactions in the model. If so, the model may be further modified such that the criteria can be organised in a network with the use of Analytic Network Process (ANP). Next, the decision maker will review the process and examine the severity. The model is then modified using iterative forward and backward AHP planning process if necessary and the decision support process ends.

A comprehensive study on the affordability and quality of the public housing in Singapore is carried out to illustrate how the proposed decision support process works under this scenario. A multiple attribute analysis is used to identify relevant criteria and appropriate alternative that analyses the public housing in Singapore. An AHP analysis is performed to examine the current public housing situation, which is Good-quality, less affordable public housing. The current scenario, however, deviates from the most likely future scenario - Good-quality, affordable public housing. An iterative forward and backward AHP planning process is used to identify four policies and evaluate the effectiveness. In the policies evaluation process, it can be observed that there are two policies which dominate the other two policies. This suggest that these two policies can be jointly implemented to achieve an enhanced combined outcome. This combined outcome is then analysed and found to have achieved the desired scenario.

The proposed decision support provides an easy understanding of the methodological concepts for Singaporeans who want to purchase HDB or have already own a HDB flat through the identification of current situation to evaluation of policies and their effectiveness. The application in Singapore public housing has shown its practicality in analysing affordable and quality housing. With the use of the proposed decision support process, the effectiveness of public housing policies in achieving the desired scenario can be determined. This is an improvement from the past studies on housing.