Bedok South and the September 2026 Land Betterment Charge revision: why it does not change this parcel's land cost

On 31 August 2026 the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) published its half-yearly revision of Land Betterment Charge (LBC) rates, effective 1 September 2026 to 28 February 2027. Non-landed residential rates rose 3.4% on average, with 70 of the 118 geographical sectors moving up and 48 unchanged. Three days later, on 4 September, URA awarded the New Upper Changi Road parcel that this site tracks as Bedok South. Because the two announcements landed in the same week, buyers are asking whether the LBC revision adds to the land cost of this development, and whether the Bedok sector rate says anything about the eventual launch price. The short answers are no and not directly. Here is why.

What the LBC revision changed for the Bedok sectors

SLA's September 2026 Table of Rates lists a non-landed residential (Use Group B2) rate of S$10,780 per sq m of floor area for Sector 96, the coastal strip running along Bedok and Bayshore, and S$9,730 per sq m for Sector 95 immediately inland. The Sector 96 figure was S$9,450 per sq m in the March 2026 table, so this revision lifted it by roughly 14%, well above the 3.4% national average for non-landed residential. Converted to the unit developers talk in, S$10,780 per sq m is about S$1,000 per sq ft of floor area.

SLA's sector maps are drawn at a scale that does not settle which side of the Sector 95/96 line the New Upper Changi Road parcel falls on, and the exact sector can be checked on OneMap. For a buyer of this development, the good news is that it does not matter, for the reason set out next.

Why LBC is not part of this parcel's land cost

LBC is a tax on the increase in land value that arises when a chargeable consent, such as planning permission, lets a piece of land be used more intensively than before. Under section 11 of the Land Betterment Charge Act 2021, the charge is the post-chargeable valuation minus the pre-chargeable valuation, and the Act states that no LBC is payable where the post-chargeable valuation does not exceed the pre-chargeable one. The pre-chargeable baseline must take into account the restrictive covenants written into the State title for the land.

A Government Land Sales parcel is sold with those parameters already fixed. URA's tender for New Upper Changi Road set a maximum permissible gross floor area of 86,154 sq m on a 30,769 sq m site, and the winning consortium paid S$1,425,388,000 for exactly that entitlement. The State title carries the same intensity, so a residential scheme built within the tendered floor area produces no uplift for LBC to bite on. The developer paid full value for the floor area at the tender; there is no second land bill triggered by the September rate revision. Only a later application to build beyond what the title permits would open an LBC question, and nothing in URA's award notice suggests that.

This is also why the LBC revision matters more to the owners of ageing condominiums in Sector 96 weighing a collective sale than to buyers of a fresh GLS launch. For an en bloc site, LBC is often a real line item; for this parcel, it is a zero.

Two indicators of land value, and which one matters here

The sector LBC rate and the tender psf ppr are both expressed per unit of floor area, which invites people to compare them. They measure different things.

• The sector LBC rate is an administrative rate SLA sets in consultation with the Chief Valuer for a whole geographical sector, reviewed every six months. It is a tax rate for value uplift, not a price anyone paid. It tells you SLA's view of how land values in the sector have moved, and it moves after the market, not ahead of it.
• The tender price per sq m of GFA is a transaction. URA's award notice records S$16,544.65 per sq m of gross floor area, which is about S$1,537 per sq ft per plot ratio. It is what one specific consortium agreed to pay for this specific site after weighing its own construction, financing and sales assumptions.

For the launch price of this development, only the second number is an input, and it is an input to the developer's cost base, not a forecast of the selling price. The eventual psf of a unit will layer construction cost, financing, marketing, and a margin on top of the land component, and then be tested against what buyers near the future Bedok South MRT are willing to pay. None of those layers is public today. The price page therefore stays at TBA until the developer releases an indicative range, and the floor-plans page will follow once unit mix and sizes are confirmed.

The Sector 96 LBC rate of roughly S$1,000 per sq ft of floor area sits well below the S$1,537 psf ppr paid at tender. That gap is not a pricing signal: one is a broad-sector tax rate that catches up to transactions over time, the other is a single competitive bid for a large, well-located site.

What a Bedok South buyer should actually watch

1. The developer's own announcements. The award went to United Venture Development (Daisy) Pte. Ltd. and CL Sapphire Pte. Ltd. Project name, unit mix, and indicative pricing will come from them, not from SLA rate tables. This site logs verified changes on latest updates and the registration status page.
2. Floor area, not land area. Both indicators above are quoted per unit of gross floor area. When indicative pricing arrives it will be quoted on strata area, a different base again. Do not mix the three.
3. Your own affordability, independent of the land story. The financing page and the resale levy calculator let HDB upgraders test scenarios now, before any price list exists.
4. The next LBC revision on 1 March 2027. If Sector 96 moves again, it will be a lagging reflection of transactions such as this tender. It will not change this parcel's cost, and it will not be a launch-price forecast.

Showflat details are not yet announced; register on the showflat page to be notified when a preview date is confirmed. For the tender facts themselves, see the earlier note on the New Upper Changi Road tender award.