The upcoming Tengah development will feature Singapore’s first car-free Housing and Development Board (HDB) town centre, and the first batch of flats will be made available from 2018.
Details of HDB’s 24th town, dubbed “Forest Town” as it will be integrated with the area’s greenery and biodiversity, was revealed by National Development Minister Lawrence Wong at the HDB Awards ceremony on Thursday (Sep 8).
Mr Wong said: “This will be the first town for smart living in Singapore … We’ve talked about Singapore becoming a smart city, a Smart Nation … with IT, with sensors.
The National Development Minister noted that many of the smart features have already been introduced in pilot projects across different estates. “For example, we have pilots in Yuhua, in Punggol Northshore, where we use sensors to better manage utilities, where we help households to monitor their elderly parents or relatives who are alone at home.
“So these smart technologies are already in place, but in a more ad hoc fashion and across different pilots in different areas. Having gained experience with these pilots, we are now ready to do a larger scale roll-out town-wide.
“So Tengah, as a new town, will be our first smart living town where all of these technologies can be introduced on a town-wide scale. Residents can benefit from more efficient services, smarter services and greater convenience.”
Tengah will comprise five districts – Plantation, Garden, Forest Hill, Brickland and Park. The first batch of flats will be launched in Plantation, and when fully completed, the development is estimated to provide about 42,000 homes – 30,000 units of public housing and 12,000 private ones.
As for the “car-free” town centre, HDB said the roads are planned to run beneath it so that ground-level space is freed up. It will have dedicated walking and cycling paths for residents to commute. It will also be served by the Jurong Region Line, which is estimated to be completed in about 10 years, it added.
The Tengah project was previously described as a “forest town” that would be integrated with the Jurong Lake District, Mr Wong revealed in Parliament earlier in April.
One of the main features will be a 100-metre-wide and five-kilometre-long forest corridor, a collaboration with the National Parks Board. It will form part of the larger network of greenery that connects the Western Water Catchment Area and the Central Catchment Nature Reserve, and will have hiking trails, HDB said.
There will also be a Central Park spanning about 20 hectares, or the size of Ang Mo Kio Town Garden West. The park will be complemented with ponds and canals, according to HDB.
The road networks in Tengah are also designed to meet future needs, as they could support future forms of mobility, such as autonomous or self-driving vehicles. In addition, most bus stops will be located within 300m of residents’ homes, it said.
The Tengah exhibition will be held from Thursday till Sep 25 at the HDB Hub Sales Display Area. It will be opened daily, from 9am to 8pm. The public is invited to visit the exhibition and give their feedback on the development, HDB said.
Source : Channel NewsAsia – 8 Sep 2016