Choa Chu Kang residents craving affordable meals close to home can look forward to two new hawker centres in future.
There are currently no hawker centres in Choa Chu Kang town, with the closest being Bukit Panjang Hawker Centre, about 3km away, the National Environment Agency (NEA) said yesterday.
This is set to change. Said Chua Chu Kang GRC MP Zaqy Mohamad at a constituency event: "We're going to have another hawker centre in Choa Chu Kang town centre, and that will be done after the Jurong Region Line construction works are completed in 2026."
The hawker centre will be part of a mixed-use development, said the Minister of State for National Development and Manpower.
The other hawker centre will be in the planned Yew Tee Integrated Development opening in 2026.
Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC MP Alex Yam said the idea started out simply as a plan for a hawker centre back in 2013. Due to land scarcity, the authorities decided to fully utilise the land, and added a polyclinic and a community club to the mix. Later, the idea for a "big project" including residential facilities, especially for older residents, came up.
These new hawker centres are among the 20 either completed or still in the pipeline, since the Government said in 2011 that it would resume building new hawker centres.
Senior Minister of State for the Environment and Water Resources Amy Khor said in the NEA statement: "Hawker centres serve the important role of stabilising food prices, offering affordable and accessible food options, when compared to other food and beverage outlets such as coffee shops, foodcourts and even shopping malls in some HDB estates."
Other amenities to be built in the area include a new polyclinic, to be operated by National University Polyclinics, near Yew Tee MRT station. It will be ready by 2026, and will provide primary care services to Choa Chu Kang residents, including chronic disease management, women and children's health services, and psychological services.
Said Dr Lam Pin Min, Senior Minister of State for Health and Transport: "Feedback from residents, as well as from patients, (is) that the Choa Chu Kang Polyclinic is actually quite crowded."
Long-time Yew Tee resident Wanie Kayleigh Gomez, 27, said she was looking forward to the area becoming more vibrant with the new developments. "I grew up here, so I'm really looking forward to seeing the changes and the addition of more facilities," said the advertising and marketing associate.
The mother of four children, aged one to seven, added that the polyclinic would make it easier for her to take them for health check-ups, as she would not have to travel all the way to Choa Chu Kang Polyclinic.
