Proposals · Part II · Rebuilding the hawker economy

Rent bands and ballot

Vacant public-centre stalls are let at published fixed rents by centre class and allocated by ballot, instead of to the highest bidder.

ASK OF GOVERNMENT · NEA PILOT, ADMINISTRATIVE
NO NEW LEGISLATION
BUILDS ON · 2012 & NOV 2024 TENDER REFORMS

Fixed cooked-food bands by centre class and stall type are calibrated to the assessed market rent NEA already commissions and reviewed every three years: indicatively $1,700 a month in a Class A centre, $1,150 in Class B and $650 in Class C. Qualified applicants (a completed apprenticeship, a Seed Bank programme or a simple food-business track record) enter a ballot weighted towards first-time operators and Endangered Dish Registry proposals. Nothing changes for any sitting hawker, pioneer rates included; the programme pays no rent subsidy: a stall for an Endangered Dish Registry dish pays its band's rent, and its weight in the ballot is its only favour. It is piloted at the three pilot centres, five at most, the Lighthouses first. The section reads NEA's three quoted rents as a range, not one number: about $1,200 assessed market rent, $1,450 median paid in 2025 and about $1,800 median winning bid in 2023. Follow the Plate (D.4.1) tests the range: a typical tendered hawker earns less than the assistant benchmark above about $720 of rent, or above about $2,590 with the package (about $2,300 without the named deputy), and a stall loses money only above about $4,500; a successor's protected income binds from about $1,920.

Who pays

ASK OF GOVERNMENT · SELF-FINANCING · BUILDS ON

What it costs

the extra rent the highest bids might have raised at those centres

Piloted at three centres, five at most, its costs to the State are the extra rent the highest bids might have raised at those centres, and the fee subsidy – small, capped, and knowable in advance.

What it builds on

Tender reform: reserve rent removed 2012; Nov 2024 staggered renewal adjustment to deter overly high bids; median AMR ≈$1,200; ~1 in 5 stalls awarded at ≤$500 (§1.3).

The ask of Government

Decision: Rent bands & ballot pilot at the pilot centres
Instrument: NEA administrative – completes the 2012 & Nov 2024 tender reforms; the operator's agreement too wherever an operator runs a pilot centre, since its rents are fixed in its contract
Fiscal cost: The extra rent the highest bids might have raised, at three centres, five at most – small, capped
What it buys: Fair, ungameable allocation; ends record-bid headlines; keeps the ballot proposed in Parliament in 2024, not its fixed or turnover rent, and answers each of the Government's four objections (the Record, A.7, §2.2). "BTO fairness comes to the hawker centre."

From §7.7.

Who gains

Hawkers: A young cook gets a real stall by ballot and knows the rent before applying; no one's tenancy depends on a bidding war (§1.4, §2.2).
Government: "BTO fairness comes to the hawker centre": fair, ungameable allocation that ends record-bid headlines (§7.7).

Model scores

Scored by the Follow the Plate model. How the scores work is in Follow the Plate, D.7. Cash and savings are shown separately. “Per programme dollar” is the household gain for each dollar the programme spends.

Rent bands and ballot (§2.2): New entrant pays Band B $1,150 instead of the 2023 median winning bid of $1,800
Amounts a year	Per tendered NEA stall (NEA centre, tendered)	National, at 3% take-up (129.9 stalls)
Programme cost	$7,800	$1,013,220
Net public cost	$6,478	$841,515
Hawker household: cash	$6,723	$873,338
Hawker household: savings and other gains	−$245	−$31,823
Diners	$0	$0
Per programme dollar: all gains	$0.83	$0.83
Per programme dollar: cash	$0.86	$0.86

Where the library discusses it

§2.2 · §1.3 · §6.3 · §7.7 · Hawkers and Social Protection, C.7 · Follow the Plate, D.7 · Follow the Plate, D.7.1 · Follow the Plate, D.7.4 · Follow the Plate, D.4.1 · §2.1

Note: The 'self' chip on this section reads 'NO NEW LEGISLATION', not 'SELF-FINANCING'; who_pays maps chips by print class. The model scores a new entrant paying Band B $1,150 against the 2023 median winning bid of $1,800 (§2.1), while the tendered baseline elsewhere uses the 2025 median rent of $1,450 (Follow the Plate, D.3). §2.2 rounds the loss-making break point to about $4,500; Follow the Plate, D.4.1 prints about $4,530. Earlier proposals (the Record, A.7): a ballot within each food category at a turnover rent with a floor ($500 or 3% of gross turnover), proposed by Leong Mun Wai, a Non-Constituency MP, moving the motion of 13 Nov 2024, and a ballot with a pre-determined rent, proposed by Hazel Poa, also then a Non-Constituency MP; a ballot 'at a fixed rental rate targeted at cost recovery', asked about by Melvin Yong, the MP for Radin Mas, on 14 Oct 2024; and tenders that weigh quality as well as price, asked for by Louis Chua, Liang Eng Hwa and Mariam Jaafar on 13 Nov 2024. The plan keeps the ballot, not a fixed or turnover rent.