PART I 1.*—(1) This Act may be cited as the Planning Act.| (2) The Minister may, from time to time by notification in the Gazette, exempt any land or lands either generally or for a specified period from the operation of all or any of the provisions of this Act. |
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| * The former subsection (2) of this section was deleted by Act 9/82. |
2.—(1) In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires —| “building” includes any house, hut, shed or roofed enclosure, whether used for the purpose of human habitation or otherwise, and also any wall, fence, platform, staging, gate, post, pillar, paling, frame, hoarding, slip, dock, wharf, pier, jetty, landing-stage or bridge, or any structure or foundation connected to the foregoing; |
| “Certified Interpretation Plan” means a Certified Interpretation Plan prepared and certified by the competent authority under section 8; |
| “Collector” means any officer appointed by the President to be a Collector of Land Revenue or a Deputy Collector of Land Revenue; |
| “competent authority” means any competent authority appointed under section 3; |
| “holding” means any piece or parcel of land held or possessed under an instrument of title, capable of being registered under the Registration of Deeds Act [Cap. 269] or, where applicable, under the Land Titles Act [Cap. 157], relating exclusively thereto; |
| “land” includes buildings and any estate or interest in or right over land; |
| “Master Plan” means the Master Plan including the written statement submitted to and approved by the Governor in Council on 5th August 1958 under the provisions of Part IV of the Singapore Improvement Ordinance [1955 Ed., Cap. 259], repealed by this Act, and the rules made thereunder and includes all alterations and additions thereto submitted to and approved by the Governor in Council or the Minister under those provisions and rules and the provisions of Part II of this Act and the rules made thereunder; |
| “Municipal Provident Fund” means the Municipal Provident Fund established by the City Council under the provisions of the Municipal Ordinance [1936 Ed. Cap. 133] and continued and deemed to have been established under the Local Government Integration Act [Cap. 166]; |
| “occupier” includes any person in actual occupation of land or premises or any person having the charge, management or control of the land or premises either on his own account or as an agent of another person, but does not include a lodger; |
| “owner”, in relation to land or premises, means the person for the time being receiving the rent of the land or premises whether on his own account or as agent or trustee for any other person or as receiver (not being appointed by or on behalf of a mortgagee) or who would receive the rent if the land or premises were let to a tenant and includes a mortgagee in possession; |
| “public street” means any street over which the public has a right of way and which is or has been usually repaired or maintained by the Government or which has been conveyed to the Government or has become vested in the Government under this Act or under any written law relating to local government for the time being in force or in any other manner; |
| “street” includes any road, square, footway or passage, whether a thoroughfare or not, over which the public has a right of way, and also the way over any public bridge, and includes also any road, footway or passage, open court or open alley, used or intended to be used as a means of access to two or more holdings, whether the public has a right of way thereover or not; and all channels, drains and ditches at the side of any street shall be deemed to be part of that street; |
| “use” in relation to land does not include the use of land by the carrying out of any building or other operations thereon; |
| “written statement of the Master Plan” means that part of the Master Plan which includes a summary of the main proposals of the Master Plan with such descriptive matter as the competent authority considers necessary to illustrate the proposals of the Master Plan or as the Minister may from time to time direct for that purpose. |
(2) For the purposes of this Act, a person is said to subdivide land if, by any deed or instrument, he conveys, assigns, demises or otherwise disposes of any part of the land in such a manner that the part so disposed of becomes capable of being registered under the Registration of Deeds Act [Cap. 269] or in the case of registered land being included in a separate folio of the land-register under the Land Titles Act [Cap. 157], and “subdivide” and “subdivision” shall be construed accordingly:| Provided that a lease for a period not exceeding 7 years without the option of renewal or purchase shall not be deemed to be a disposal within the meaning of this definition. |
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| (3) In any other written law and in any other document whatsoever unless the context otherwise requires any reference to the planning functions of the Singapore Improvement Trust shall be construed as a reference to the planning functions of the competent authority. |
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3. The Minister may, by notification in the Gazette, appoint such person or persons as he thinks fit to be the competent authority* or authorities responsible for the operation of this Act either generally or for any particular Part or provision of this Act and may in the notification specify the extent of and manner in which that responsibility is to be exercised.| * The Chief Planner and the Deputy Director-General, Development and Building Control Division of the Public Works Department. See S 97/74 and S 360/81. |
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| Transfer to Government of certain undertakings of Trust |
| 4. Upon the commencement of this Act, such part of the undertakings of the Singapore Improvement Trust as the Minister considers necessary for the carrying out of the purposes of this Act shall, on his direction, be transferred to the Government and upon the transfer that part of the undertakings of the Singapore Improvement Trust shall vest in the Government without further assurance. |
5.—(1) On the commencement of this Act, every officer of the Singapore Improvement Trust who is not deemed to be transferred to the service of the Housing and Development Board under section 40(1) of the Housing and Development Act [Cap. 129], shall be deemed to be transferred to the service of the Government at the same rate of pay and, as near as may be, on the same conditions of service as those on which he was employed by the Singapore Improvement Trust.| (2) The service under the Singapore Improvement Trust of every person transferred to the service of the Government under subsection (1) shall be deemed to have been service under the Government for the purposes of and subject to the provisions of the Pensions Act [Cap. 225]. |
| (3) Until other provision is made, the Municipal (Provident Fund) Rules 1956 [S 179/56; S 201/56], as from time to time amended, shall continue to apply to every person transferred to the service of the Government under subsection (1) who, immediately before the commencement of this Act, was a member of the Municipal Provident Fund, or would have been eligible for membership of the Fund if he had attained the age of 20 years and had passed a medical examination of the standard prescribed, in the like manner as those Rules applied to those persons before the commencement of this Act, and every reference to service or employment with the City Council in those Rules shall be construed as a reference to service or employment with the Government in respect of those persons. |
| (4) Until other provision is made, the provisions of the Municipal (Provident Fund) Rules 1956, as from time to time amended, requiring the City Council to make payments into the Municipal Provident Fund shall apply to the Government and shall be construed as provisions requiring the Government to make payments into the Fund in respect of every person referred to in subsection (3) who is or who becomes a member of the Fund. |
| (5) Persons who have been transferred to the service of the Government under subsection (1) may count their previous service in the Singapore Improvement Trust, and their previous membership of the Municipal Provident Fund and their contributions to the Fund, for the purpose of determining the benefits to which they become entitled under this section. |
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