PART I | Short title and commencement |
| 1. This Act may be cited as the Planning Act 1997 and shall come into operation on such date as the Minister may, by notification in the Gazette, appoint. |
2. In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires —| “amendment”, in relation to the Master Plan, includes any alteration or addition to or any repeal or replacement of the Master Plan in whole or in part; |
“breach of planning control” means —| (a) | the carrying out of any development of land without the requisite planning permission; | | (b) | the carrying out of works in a conservation area without the requisite conservation permission; or | | (c) | any failure to comply with any condition subject to which planning permission or conservation permission was granted; |
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| “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; |
| “certificate of statutory completion” has the same meaning as in the Building Control Act (Cap. 29); |
| “Certified Interpretation Plan” means a Certified Interpretation Plan prepared and certified by the competent authority under section 7; |
| “Collector” means any officer appointed by the President to be a Collector of Land Revenue or a Deputy Collector of Land Revenue; |
| “competent authority”, in relation to this Act or any Part or provision of this Act, means any competent authority appointed under section 5 to be responsible for the operation of this Act or that Part or provision, as the case may be; |
| “conservation” means the preservation, enhancement or restoration of the character or appearance of, and the interior and exterior of any building in, a conservation area; |
| “conservation area” means an area designated by the Minister in accordance with sections 8 and 9; |
| “conservation guidelines” means the conservation guidelines issued under section 11; |
| “conservation permission” means permission referred to in section 12(2); |
| “development charge” means the tax payable under section 35; |
| “enforcement notice” means a notice served under section 28; |
| “functions” includes powers and duties; |
| “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; |
| “information notice” has the meaning assigned to it in section 25; |
| “land” includes buildings and any estate or interest in or right over land; |
| “Master Plan” has the meaning assigned to it in section 6; |
| “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 trustee for any other person or as receiver (not being appointed by or on behalf of a mortgagee) or the person who would receive the rent if the land or premises were let to a tenant and includes —| (a) | a mortgagee in possession; and | | (b) | the purchaser of any newly constructed premises or part thereof in respect of which a temporary occupation permit or a certificate of statutory completion has been granted; |
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| “planning permission” means permission referred to in section 12(1); |
| “prescribe” means prescribe by rules made under this Act; |
| “provisional permission” means provisional permission granted under section 17(1); |
| “purchase notice” means a notice served under section 24; |
| “repealed Act” means the Planning Act (Cap. 232) repealed by this Act; |
| “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 2 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; |
| “subdivision permission” means permission referred to in section 12(3); |
| “temporary occupation permit” has the same meaning as in the Building Control Act (Cap. 29); |
| “use”, in relation to land, does not include the use of land by the carrying out of any building or other operations on the land; |
“works within a conservation area” means —| (a) | any development of land within a conservation area; or | | (b) | any decorative, painting, renovation or other works (whether external or internal) to any building within a conservation area which may affect its character or appearance; |
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| “written permission” means a planning permission, conservation permission or subdivision permission, as the case may be, granted by a competent authority and includes any such permission granted or issued by electronic transmission or in a medium other than paper and authenticated in such manner as the competent authority may determine; |
| “written statement”, in relation to 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. |
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3.—(1) Subject to the following provisions of this section, in this Act, except where the context otherwise requires, “development” means the carrying out of any building, engineering, mining, earthworks or other operations in, on, over or under land, or to the making of any material change in the use of any building or land, and “develop” and “developing” shall be construed accordingly.(2) The following operations or uses of land shall not be deemed for the purposes of this Act to involve development of land:| (a) | the carrying out of works for the maintenance, improvement or other alteration of a building which do not materially affect the external appearance or the floor area of the building; | | (b) | the carrying out of such minor or preliminary works and such temporary use of land as may be declared by the competent authority for the purpose of this subsection; | | (c) | the carrying out by any statutory authority of any works on land within the boundaries of a street, being works which are necessary for the maintenance or improvement of the street; | | (d) | the carrying out by any statutory authority of any works for the purpose of laying, inspecting, repairing or renewing any sewers, mains, pipes, cables or other apparatus, including the breaking open of any street or other land for that purpose; | | (e) | the carrying out of any act authorised or required by the Destruction of Disease-Bearing Insects Act (Cap. 79); | | (f) | the use of any existing building or land within the curtilage of a dwelling-house for any purpose incidental to the enjoyment of the dwelling-house as such; | | (g) | the use of any land for the purposes of agriculture or forestry (including afforestation) and the use for any of those purposes of any building occupied together with land so used; | | (h) | in the case of buildings or land which are used for a purpose of any class specified in any rules made under section 61, the use of the building or land or any part thereof for any other purpose within the same class. |
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(3) For the avoidance of doubt, it is hereby declared that for the purposes of this section —| (a) | the use as 2 or more separate houses of any building previously used as a single house involves a material change in the use of the building and of each part thereof which is so used; | | (b) | the use as a dwelling-house of any building not originally constructed for human habitation involves a material change in the use of the building; | | (c) | the use for other purposes of a building or part of a building originally constructed as a dwelling-house involves a material change in the use of the building; | | (d) | the demolition or reconstruction of or addition to a building constitutes development; | | (e) | the use for the display of advertisements of any external part of a building which is not normally used for that purpose involves a material change in the use of the building; | | (f) | the deposit of refuse or waste materials on land involves a material change in the use thereof notwithstanding that the land is comprised in a site already used for that purpose, if —| (i) | the superficial area of the deposit is extended; or | | (ii) | the height of the deposit is extended and exceeds the level of the land adjoining the site; |
| | (g) | subject to subsection (2)(h), the use of any building or part thereof for any purpose other than that for which the building was originally constructed involves a material change in the use of the building; and | | (h) | any decorative, painting, renovation or building works, whether external or internal, to or on a monument in respect of which there is in force a preservation order under the Preservation of Monuments Act (Cap. 239) shall constitute building operations. |
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4.—(1) Subject to this section, a person shall, for the purposes of this Act, be 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.(2) Notwithstanding subsection (1), the following leases granted on or after the commencement of this Act shall not be regarded as a disposal of the land or part thereof:| (a) | in the case of any development described in Part I of the First Schedule, the grant of any lease for any unit in the development for a term not exceeding an aggregate of 14 years; | | (b) | in the case of any development described in Part II of the First Schedule, the grant of any lease for a building or any part of a building comprised in the development for a term not exceeding an aggregate of 14 years; or | | (c) | in the case of any other land, the grant of any lease of the whole or part of the land for a term not exceeding an aggregate of 7 years. |
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(3) The Minister may, at any time by order published in the Gazette —| (a) | amend, delete or add to the list of leases in subsection (2) which shall not be regarded as a disposal of land or part thereof; or | | (b) | amend the First Schedule. |
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(4) For the purposes of this section —| (a) | the fact that the term of a lease may be extended in pursuance of an option shall be taken into consideration in determining whether the term of the lease exceeds 14 years or 7 years, as the case may be; and | | (b) | the fact that a lease for a specified period of time is determinable on the happening of an event within that time shall not be taken into consideration in determining the term of the lease. |
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5.—(1) 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 or for any particular rules made under this Act, and may in the notification specify the extent of and manner in which that responsibility is to be exercised.| (2) The functions conferred on the competent authority by this Act may be performed by any officer referred to in subsection (3) who has been generally or specially authorised by name or office by the competent authority, and subject to his direction and control. |
(3) The competent authority may authorise any of the following persons to perform all or any of his functions conferred by this Act:| (a) | any public officer; and | | (b) | any officer in the employment of a statutory authority which has been approved by the Minister for the purpose. |
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(4) Any officer who is authorised (whether generally or specially) under subsection (2) to perform the functions of the competent authority under this Act shall be deemed to be —| (a) | a public officer for the purposes of this Act; and | | (b) | a public servant within the meaning of the Penal Code (Cap. 224). |
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