Since Service & Conservancy Charges (S&CC) rebates were announced during Budget 2026, it is a good time to re-discover how your Town Council puts that money to good use. Part of that money goes into Repairs & Redecoration (R&R)works that improve the neighbourhoods you live in.
Ever find yourself looking at your block and wondering why it is (or isn’t) your favourite colour? Why is it blue? There’s a long answer, and there’s a short answer.
The short answer is that most people liked the colour scheme. But if you want the full picture, here’s the longer version.
What is R&R?
(Re)painting the walls of a HDB block is part of R&R works. Once every seven years, entire clusters of blocks undergo R&R to rejuvenate the area, and to ensure that neighbourhood is fit to live in. But while it’s easy to think of it as simply a painting exercise, repairing actually comes first (literally; it’s in the name).
Property officers scour the area for things that need repairing. Floors, drains, gratings, signage, riser doors, and yes, walls. It is inevitable that over time, parts of your estate suffer some sort of wear and tear. R&R makes sure that your living environment remains comfortable, and most importantly, safe. This means that when the workers in gondolas hang outside your windows, they aren’t just painting the walls. They are checking for any sort of damage to the concrete, be it cracks or bulges, and repairing them to prevent breakage or water seepage. Even before a single coat of paint goes on, the walls must be washed and repaired to last another seven years.
At the same time, work is happening all around the precinct. Damaged concrete floors are repaired, broken riser doors are replaced, and signs are refreshed. While these works might seem straightforward, property managers and their teams have put in a lot of thought to make sure the works cause as little disruption as possible. In the past, repairing concrete floors might have involved hacking to get rid of the old cement, but to reduce noise and increase speed, Town Council property teams write into their tenders to specify the use of Acrylic Polymer Cementitious Coating (APCC). APCC doesn’t require any hacking, and is quickly applied on cement floors to make the surface even.
The Town Council property teams are always looking for ways to improve the neighbourhoods. Recently, the Town Council experimented with epoxy flakes for the floors of some blocks. A blend of function and form, the epoxy flake floors are non-slip and have nice colour variation, giving the area a modern feel.
Painting the Town
When painting the exteriors of HDB blocks, function has to be balanced with form. While some might find the frequent use of grey, a relatively “boring” colour, there is good reason why it is often the base colour. Stains showup more easily on white or dark colours, but on grey, the same stains aren’t as obvious, allowing the block’s appearance to age better, and last the seven years until the next repainting. In the same vein of function, the Town Council has also been adopting the use of cool paint as part of our sustainability efforts, helping ensure that the blocks remain comfortable and environmentally responsible over time.
Residents’ views are also taken into account when it comes to the final colour scheme of their blocks. But even before the mock ups are painted on the ground floors of blocks, and even before the voting slips are distributed, the property teams consider many factors before showing the residents any options.
Not only do the property teams have to keep in mind the demographics of the residents, they also have to think about how to incorporate the town’s colours as published in HDB’s town guides, aimed at developing each towns’ own sense of identity and belonging for residents.
For example, the blocks in Yew Tee (Choa Chu Kang North) have a theme of “Riverside Living”. The guide recommends blocks in Choa Chu Kang use the base colours of white and “Magnolia” (BS 08 B 15), a warm, creamy peach.
The options that residents vote on are a culmination of myriad considerations from design, to demographics, to identity.
Photo courtesy of HDB Town Design Guide for Choa Chu Kang
To learn more about how HDB plans to design your town, you can visit their website to download their Town Design Guide: https://www.hdb.gov.sg/about-us/our-role/plan-and-design-towns/town-design-guides
That is Why Your Block is Blue
Choosing a colour for an estate is a complicated process. There are many considerations to balance, from the national push to create town identity, to the Town Council’s desire to ensure services meet community needs, to the individual opinions of the hundreds of residents that stay in the blocks.
So now you know why your block isn’t your favourite colour, we hope you aren’t feeling too blue or seeing red. The silver lining is that there’s always another golden opportunity to vote for your favourite colour.