SINGAPORE (AFP) – On a clear day, you can see Indonesia's Riau islands from the top of The Pinnacle@Duxton, a cluster of 50-storey buildings with spectacular views of Singapore's waterfront and financial district.
But the seven towers of The Pinnacle do not host corporate headquarters, a five-star hotel or luxury apartments.
It is a public housing project, the tallest and most ambitious ever undertaken by a city-state that prides itself on almost universal home ownership after four decades of rapid progress.
Boasting 1,848 flats with condominium-like finishes and costing up to 645,800 Singapore dollars (461,000 US) for prime units, The Pinnacle has taken public housing to new heights in property-obsessed Singapore.
The price tag may seem high for a public apartment, but the project is located in the city centre and a comparable unit would cost a million Singapore dollars or more in a private condominium out in the suburbs.
"It has certainly turned the notch a mark higher. With the Pinnacle, (the government) has sent the message that public housing can include good urban designs and lifestyle elements," said Chua Yang Liang, head of research and consultancy for property advisers Jones Lang LaSalle in Southeast Asia.
The view from the 156-metre (511-foot) rooftop garden is so good that outsiders willingly pay an entrance fee of five Singapore dollars to take in the scenery and shoot pictures and videos.
"We came here just to see it because it's the only HDB flat like this," said Nur Rashida Bte Naha, a 42-year-old part-time nurse who visited the complex with her husband and three sons on a recent Sunday afternoon.
The HDB is the Housing and Development Board, a powerful agency whose projects have taken Singaporeans out of the slums and ghettos that once blighted the island and into multi-storey apartment buildings surrounded by shops, markets, banks, transport links and other essentials.
More than 80 percent of Singaporeans live in HDB housing, and 95 percent of residents own their flats, according to the agency's website.
The agency has built more than 900,000 apartments since the 1960s, with recent HDB offerings like The Pinnacle a far cry from the early flats which were largely unfurnished, came with bare cement floors, squat toilets and lifts that did not stop on every floor.
Savings stashed by Singaporeans in a compulsory national pension scheme are used to finance HDB mortgages, creating a permanent pool of funds.
Public housing neighbourhoods are designed so that residents in the multi-ethnic nation have common areas to interact in a bid to promote racial harmony.
The HDB has also put in place ethnic eligibility quotas for buyers to prevent racial enclaves from forming.
"The idea of having a certain percentage of other races in a particular area, this is important," said Ho Kong Chong, an associate professor with the National University of Singapore's sociology department.
"In other countries, if you look at the example of France, where the migrants converge in certain districts, you will have ethnic enclaves and then there will be certain problems and issues of not being able to understand different ethnicities and backgrounds," he told AFP.
The Pinnacle is a pet project of Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew, the longtime member of parliament for the district where it stands, and the design was the result of an international competition won eventually by a local firm of architects.
The apartments' interiors, including glazed ceramic floors in the living and dining rooms and timber-strip floors in the bedrooms, reflect the country's growing affluence.
Prospective buyers of new HDB flats have to take part in a lottery, and the lucky ones who were able to purchase units at The Pinnacle when it opened in December are delighted.
Resident Jeremy Gan, 31, who bought a unit for 358,000 dollars with his fiancee, said he was attracted by its prime location and the convenience of having two train stations nearby.
"We feel lucky having a home here because we didn't think we would get it. It's the cream of the crop for HDB now, so we are very happy," said Gan, who is planning a wedding ceremony at the rooftop garden in October.
"It's an investment. It's worth it in the long run," he said.
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