Pioneer planner and URA founder Alan Choe dies at 93

He played key role in laying foundation for urban development, heritage conservation

- Ng Keng Gene

Pioneer urban planner Alan Choe, the first architect-planner of the Housing Board and the founder of the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), died on May 27 at the age of 93.

Mr Choe made many contributions to Singapore while in public service. He was instrumental in laying the foundation for the country's urban development and its heritage conservation programme, as well as turning Sentosa into a leisure and residential destination.

Colleagues and successors described Mr Choe as a visionary leader, the father of urban development in Singapore, and a true urbane gentleman.

Born on March 6, 1931, Mr Choe attended Pearl's Hill School and Raffles Institution before he left for tertiary studies in Australia, where he read architecture, as well as town and regional planning.

He worked for architectural firms in Australia and Singapore before he was recruited by HDB in 1960.

In 2014, Mr Choe said he was headhunted by HDB as its first architect-planner - a title created for him. "First thing they told me: 'Finish Queenstown"," said Mr Choe.

Queenstown satellite town Singapore's first had its development initiated by the British Singapore Improvement Trust in the 1950s. The town's development was taken over by HDB, which was formed on Feb 1, 1960.

Mr Choe said in 1997 that British architects had planned three of five Queenstown neighbourhoods before they left, leaving him with two to work on.

The housing densities that HDB required - 500 persons per acre, up from the 50 to 100 per acre that was the norm in Western societies came as a shock to Mr Choe, but he pressed on and completed plans for the remaining neighbourhoods.