Daily Lessons from Life 17 March 2013 - Petition against setting up of childcare centre at rooftop garden

"Petition against setting up of childcare centre at rooftop garden - CNA 17 March 2013

SINGAPORE: Some Punggol residents are petitioning against the set-up of a childcare centre at the rooftop garden of a multi-storey carpark.

A closed-door dialogue session was held with residents on Sunday.

It's understood that officers from the HDB and the Social and Family Development Ministry were also present.

Some residents told Channel NewsAsia they were informed about the plans to set up the centre at Block 180 Edgefield Plains, last week.     Some were concerned about the safety of the children, adding that there's already a childcare centre within the vicinity.     Others felt that doing so goes against the government's push to allocate more green spaces within housing estates.      Still, there were residents who felt the rooftop garden has been under-utilised and can be put to better use.

When contacted, MP for the area Penny Low said there are plans to build more childcare centres in Punggol. She said some locations are suitable, while others are not. And added that ground consultations and innovative use of space are needed, to make sure residents' needs are met."

NIMBY ('Not In My BackYard'), a Singapore coined word, originally to describe residents of public housing estates who are against building of elder care and some other health recuperation related facilities at or near their blocks is not being extended to building of child care facilities?

Maybe not. Especially if the objection is for 'concerns of safety for the children who will be housed there'.

Lessons for me are:

1. it is great to have diverse views and active citizenship of someone gathering signatures to object to the project for a good reason. e.g. the elder lady who is doing this due to the safety issue;

2. at the same time, there are other views being expressed like: more green space, under-utilization of the current roof garden, and there are already child care centers nearby. All views are logical and rational. This is good as rationality is the best way to resolve disagreement while emotion is harder to fathom when stirred!;

3. my approach will be: a. listen to the various concerns and asking for the reasons for objections; b. take the feedback in, think about them for a while before responding with WHY the objections may not be valid as no one likes to be told instantly that they had not thought through the issues properly :-); c. ask the participants to listen to other opposing views and ask how they will handle them; d. focus on 'how you can resolve or meet or minimize the concerns of ALL the opposing views instead of telling them WHY their ideas CANNOT work!'. After all the consultation, and if the wonderful democratic tool of 'voting and the minority will go with the majority' still does not work, you will have to do the right thing as long as the project will benefit a greater majority over that of a known minority.

Our politicians will need to hone up on this problems solving communication skill set! Quickly and effectively.