SINGAPORE: Timbre Group on Tuesday (Aug 26) responded to online criticism by food critic KF Seetoh about its management of Yishun Park Hawker Centre.
In a Facebook post last Saturday, Mr Seetoh bemoaned the operator’s management of the hawker centre, including rents, closed-circuit television cameras and its fines.
Yishun Park Hawker Centre is one of several Socially-conscious Enterprise Hawker Centres (SEHCs) in Singapore.
In its response, Timbre said: “We refer to recent social media posts on the management of Yishun Park Hawker Centre.
“We fully agree that without proper support, the hawker culture that is core to Singapore and Singaporeans may fade away. However, Timbre would like to clarify the facts raised.”
RENTS
Mr Seetoh said that Timbre, a social enterprise, takes 15 per cent of total sales from “successful hawkers”, otherwise they “pay basic rents and all sorts of fees”.
“The (government) built it, paid Timbre to manage it, they collect rent and conveniently take 15 per cent from the successful hawkers. Not right,” he wrote in his post.
Timbre said Yishun Park Hawker Centre operates under a gross turnover rental model where the rent varies according to the earnings of the hawker.
“This better share the risks and rewards between the operator and the hawker,” it added. This means that when earnings are low, a hawker pays lower rent, and vice versa.
Monthly rental is capped at S$2,550 (US$1,750), Timbre said.
“For some of our popular stalls, the effective rent relative to their turnover is therefore significantly lower than 15 per cent of their revenue,” said the operator.
The company added that the rent goes towards the operating revenue of the hawker centre, with 50 per cent of the operating surplus reinvested “towards the betterment” of the centre and stallholders.
Some of the surplus is also used for other measures, including regular weekend and “festive programming” for the community, as well as marketing campaigns to drive footfall.
In February, Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Grace Fu said in a written parliamentary answer that as of 2023, there were 12 SEHCs in operation and that the median stall rent was S$1,700.
Stall rents are proposed upfront by SEHC operators in their tender bids to the National Environment Agency (NEA) and operators are not allowed to vary hawkers’ rent over their tenancy terms, or subject the stall rentals to bidding.
The median rent for all non-subsidised cooked food stalls in hawker centres managed by NEA has remained relatively stable at around S$1,250 between 2015 and 2023, said Ms Fu then.
CCTV CAMERAS
Mr Seetoh also claimed in his Facebook post that Timbre had installed CCTV cameras with “listening capabilities” in every stall to monitor sales and “ensure no one cheats”.
In response to his claims, Timbre said the cameras are “useful” for verifying situations where a few hawkers were observed “not to conduct their transactions using the point-of-sales system”, which made it harder to accurately determine the rent payable.
The cameras are also useful for safety and security, as well as resolving the occasional customer dispute, it added.
Timbre said that the CCTV cameras were installed in August 2024 following “repeated feedback” from residents on noise late at night.
It added that feedback on the noise had continued despite its reminder to hawkers to minimise noise during those hours.
“The CCTVs enable us to identify the potential sources of noise, so that we can better address residents’ feedback,” said Timbre.
