Engagement with Sunset Way Residents

Disclaimer. This is a thematic summary of the closed-door residents’ engagement held at Ulu Pandan Community Club. It is not a transcript, and is intended to serve as a factual, resident-generated account of the engagement. It has been prepared using notes taken live during the session by multiple attendees, which were corroborated against each other and paraphrased to respect the Chatham House Rule while preserving the substance of the discussion. Residents who attended the meeting are welcome to suggest factual corrections or additions.

More than 130 registered residents attended the session, together with MPs Christopher de Souza and Sim Ann, representatives from HDB, NParks, URA and other agencies. The engagement ran for more than two hours and continued beyond its scheduled end.

The central question: not simply how Maju will be developed, but why.

A strong theme emerged early in the session. Many residents were not ready to discuss how development should proceed without first understanding why development of Maju Forest was necessary at all.

Questions ranged well beyond biodiversity. Residents raised urban heat, climate resilience, air quality, mental and social wellbeing, the adequacy and duration of the environmental impact assessment, housing demand, alternative sites, redevelopment of existing low-density areas and the broader role of secondary forests in Singapore’s long-term planning.

Additionally, residents also asked for engagement with higher-level agencies and ministries, given that the development of secondary forests is a nationwide conversation that spans beyond the biodiversity and housing needs of Sunset Way alone.

A resident had requested access to speak to representatives from MND, MSE and URA – the agencies who make top-level decisions on the future of Singapore, the environment and how people live with it. Later in the session, other residents reiterated that they wanted MND in the room with them.

Several residents argued that circumstances have changed substantially since Maju was first zoned for development in 1980, particularly because of climate change and increasing heat stress.

Highlighting public concern over the urban heat island effect, one resident noted that when Tengah Forest was cleared, studies show a 5.5°C rise in temperature with a maximum of 16°C rise (these figures represent Land Surface Temperature spikes). They proposed a moratorium on clearing the forest until we know exactly the effect it will have on heat.

The underlying question was whether historical zoning should remain determinative when environmental conditions and planning priorities have changed.

What HDB said about housing need

HDB explained that housing demand is driven by more than population growth or fertility rates. Factors include smaller household sizes, housing needs of Singaporeans born in earlier decades, demand from singles, and strong demand for homes in mature estates.

Clementi Emerald was cited as an example of local demand, having been heavily oversubscribed. HDB and Ms Sim Ann also referred to feedback from residents wanting to live close to parents in Clementi.

HDB presented several alternative sites that had been considered, including the SIM/SUSS area, Maju Camp, Albert Winsemius Lane, Medway Park, the former RJC campus at Mount Sinai and other sites. Its position was that these sites were either already committed, constrained or not available within the required timeframe.

Residents challenged whether this established the necessity of developing Maju now, particularly when several brownfield or already-zoned sites are expected to become available later. Another potential site, SkyPark Arena @ Holland, was raised from the floor; HDB said it would look into it.

A resident asked for more clarity on their housing pipeline – why can’t we wait for these brownfield sites? For instance, the Albert Winsemius site and Clementi Ave 4 and 5 blocks will be ready in 2032 when the Cross Island Line is complete.

The EIA, and what it does not cover

HDB addressed concerns that the latest ecological study covered only four months by saying it was considered together with an earlier 2022 study that included the migratory-bird season and recorded species including the Sunda pangolin.

HDB also clarified that the EIA is not intended to cover every impact of development. Further studies would address matters including traffic, noise, dust and other regulatory requirements before construction. An Environmental Management and Monitoring Plan would subsequently set out mitigation measures.

Residents nevertheless questioned whether the assessment framework sufficiently captures the wider consequences of removing an established forest – particularly heat, carbon, air quality, human health and ecosystem services.

This became one of the most significant differences in perspective during the evening: residents were asking not merely how ecological damage would be mitigated, but whether the full value of the existing forest had been measured before deciding that development should proceed.

Development will proceed, but how it will do so is not final

By the later part of the session, HDB confirmed that Maju Forest will be developed.

The current plan is to retain approximately 8 hectares, or 35 per cent, including native-dominated secondary forest, the natural freshwater stream and riparian buffer, the former Jurong Railway Line and a wider ecological corridor.

HDB said more greenery would be retained than originally envisaged following public feedback, and that the conceptual development plan remains subject to refinement.

No definite date for clearing or construction was given. HDB did, however, explain that flats are required within the next decade and that the long lead time required for planning, studies, design and construction means the site is needed now.

HDB said “In order to build houses, a long lead time is needed to design, to study, to build before the houses are ready for people to move in. And the long lead time takes a few years.”

This clarification was important. It established that while the configuration and extent of development remain open to refinement, the present policy position is that some development of Maju will take place.

Could more forest still be saved?

Both MPs indicated that residents’ representations had already had some effect.

Mr de Souza repeatedly referred to Dover Forest, where approximately half the forest was retained after public engagement, as a possible model for balancing housing and conservation. He indicated that he would continue pushing for a better outcome for Maju while also recognising national housing requirements.

Ms Sim Ann acknowledged the fundamental disconnect in the room: explanations about how development would be carried out might satisfy someone who already accepted development, but would not answer residents who remained unconvinced that a secondary forest should be developed in the first place.

She also acknowledged the depth of residents’ opposition and indicated that HDB should be under no illusion about the strength and persistence of that sentiment.

Different views in the room

While the session was primarily opposed to development, one resident spoke in favour of new housing, citing ageing neighbours, inadequate local services and the desire for adult children to be able to live near their parents. The resident called for a genuinely green development with healthcare and active-ageing amenities.

HDB said a new estate would bring such facilities and that ecological considerations and green-plot requirements would inform its design.

This perspective is important because the discussion was not simply “residents versus housing”. Rather, it exposed competing ideas about what Sunset Way will need in coming decades – housing and services on one hand, and the preservation of established natural infrastructure on the other.

What remained unresolved

The engagement produced greater clarity about HDB’s position, but it did not resolve the fundamental disagreement.

HDB explained why it believes more housing is required, why Clementi is considered desirable, why several alternative sites cannot presently substitute for Maju, and which parts of the forest it currently proposes to retain.

Residents, however, continued to question the premise underlying that analysis: whether exhaustion or delayed availability of other sites is sufficient justification for clearing an established secondary forest whose ecological and climate functions cannot readily be replaced.

A resident said “Just because I run out of savings, doesn’t mean I can take my neighbours money”. Scarcity of one resource (brownfield sites) doesn’t mean another resource (forests) can be used – its ecological value and irreversibility doesn’t disappear just because other options are not available in the short-term.

Questions also remained about the timing of development, the assessment of heat and wider ecosystem services, whether climate research should precede irreversible clearing, and whether environmental assessment and public engagement should take place earlier in the planning process – before development becomes the assumed starting point.

A resident questioned the effectiveness and fairness of public participation, since residents were not made aware that no-development was never possible. To build trust with citizens, the resident recommended conducting the impact assessment and engagement at an earlier stage, citing the idea of a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) – an EIA at the Master Planning stage.

Voices from the room

Something important is lost when an over two-hour engagement is reduced to themes alone. The discussion at times was pointed and openly frustrated. These residents’ positions capture much of the unresolved tension of the evening:

“You have waited from the 1980s until now — 46 years. So what is it to wait a few more years?” (Regarding the zoning of Maju Forest for residential use since the 80s)

“The EIA’s findings are essentially saying ‘don’t develop’ — so why is development still going ahead?”

“It seems like Maju Forest is going to go; the question is what percentage of it.”

“Planting 1 million trees is not the same as planting a forest.”

“We are a City in Nature. Let’s live up to that name.”

Our reading of the evening

The most significant development may not have been a change in the development decision itself. It was a change in the terms of the conversation.

The discussion was no longer simply about saving wildlife or opposing housing. Residents were asking broader planning questions: How do we value an established forest? Is nature infrastructure? How should heat, health and ecosystem services enter land-use decisions? At what stage should citizens participate? And what evidence should be required before an irreversible environmental decision is made?

HDB’s current position remains that Maju will be developed, with approximately 35 per cent retained under the present concept plan. But the final configuration has not been settled, and officials acknowledged that public feedback has already resulted in greater retention than initially planned.

So the question after 2 Sept is perhaps more precise than before: Not whether Singapore needs housing or whether land involves trade-offs, but how those trade-offs are calculated – what is counted, what is not, and whether the full cost of losing an established forest has been demonstrated before an irreversible decision is made.

That remains unresolved.