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From relaxing strolls to birdwatching: How families like his are enjoying urban living close to nature
Drawing from research, expert consultations and public feedback, the Housing Board weaves the environment into its new designs, ensuring residents return home to more restful, greener spaces
Mr Firdaus Subagio and his family enjoy living close to nature at Woodleigh Glen in the Bidadari estate. PHOTO: SPH MEDIA
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At the Bidadari Housing Board (HDB) estate, nature is just a stroll away. In fact, Mr Firdaus Subagio, Madam Nazatul Shima Zahir and their two sons, Sayf Iman and Saqyf Ihsan, live right next to nature. Their 4-room flat at Woodleigh Glen in the estate is situated beside a soon-to-be-completed park on a hillock.
Watch to learn how the Housing Board integrates its developments with the surrounding environment.
“We like how peaceful and quiet the area is,” says the 31-year-old operations manager. “As a former outdoor educator, I like to expose my family to the outdoors and share with them the different types of flora and fauna. The kids love to cycle and visit the playground and common areas, which are filled with greenery. Hopefully, when the park and the nearby lake are open, we can bring them over to explore and learn more about nature.”
In planning and designing Bidadari, HDB discussed with Nature Society (Singapore) ways to best preserve the estate’s biodiversity while meeting Singapore’s housing needs, and took on board their suggestions where feasible.
This included keeping a one-hectare hillock (about the size of one and a half football fields) as a stopover site for migratory birds, retaining the heritage trees in the hillock, and constructing a 19-metre-wide land bridge to be an eco-link between Bidadari Park and the hillock.
Across its various towns and estates, HDB has worked at balancing building homes with conserving the areas’ biodiversity, tapping and enhancing existing natural features to enable residents to live in tranquil surroundings, with convenient amenities close by.
HDB's group director of research and planning Chong Fook Loong says: “As the largest master planner and housing developer in Singapore, we seek to create high-quality living environments where residents can live well, live green and live connected. We do this by planning for greenery and sustainable features that can help improve residents’ quality of life, and unique community spaces that encourage physical activity and social interaction.
“With our partners’ help, we hope to cater to different needs, balance between development and conservation, and ensure our towns and estates remain green and beautiful. This way, residents can love and enjoy the area that they live in.”
Using science to boost sustainability
For years, HDB has made in-depth environmental baseline and impact studies part of its standard practice in developing new housing areas. Consultants survey an area over time and take stock of the wildlife, natural habitats and other biodiversity.
Mr Yeo Guan Him, the deputy director of project development and management in the building quality group at HDB, has worked on various Build-To-Order projects, including McNair Towers, Buangkok Woods and Keat Hong Verge.
He has personally seen how these studies lend the agency a different perspective, which can guide it to build higher quality and more liveable estates. He explains: “The information from these studies help us determine how best we can preserve existing biodiversity and mitigate the impact of the developments on the environment.”
For example, HDB incorporated green corridors – continuous green passages – in Punggol Northshore to maintain its ecological balance and promote biodiversity. New habitats such as dragonfly ponds, bird sanctuaries and butterfly gardens are introduced along the green corridors to attract diverse species.
In the future, those who live in the Tengah HDB town can immerse themselves in greenery in many ways too. They can hike in a forest corridor that stretches about 5km long and 100m wide, relax with friends and family in a central park with ponds and canals, and try their hand at gardening and urban farming in community farmways.
In Woodlands North, where HDB will develop more public housing, an environmental study found an area spanning over four hectares, the equivalent of about six football fields, worthy of conservation due to its rare and native plants, and freshwater stream. “With this knowledge, we could decisively adjust our plans,” says Dr Chong.
Where necessary, the authority also engages a specialist to come up with an environmental management and monitoring plan to curb any potential environmental impact from infrastructure works. This could include guiding wildlife away from the site to nearby forests before starting the development.
He notes: “With this science-based approach, we ensure that we take Singapore’s limited resources into consideration. Then, we can make trade-off decisions in the most informed manner for projects across a wide variety of land-use needs.”
Listening and learning more
More recently, HDB, together with other government agencies, has stepped up conversations with communities and people who are passionate about Singapore’s natural and built heritage, including residents, nature enthusiasts and heritage groups, to listen to their feedback on its plans.
For instance, it used the findings from the environmental baseline study, as well as subsequent feedback from nature groups and the public, to revise the urban planning and design strategies for Ulu Pandan, taking a holistic and science-based approach to balance development and nature conservation.
The revised conceptual plans also took into consideration the findings from NParks’ Ecological Profiling Exercise (EPE).
Considering the feedback and its comparatively richer biodiversity, a decision was made to retain the western half of Ulu Pandan as is in the medium term.
The plans for the area will be reviewed sometime around 2030, taking into consideration Singapore’s land use needs at that time.
In the meantime, a nature park within this part of the site, will be safeguarded to serve as a natural habitat and ecological corridor between Clementi Forest and the Southern Ridges.
“This park will also complement the connectivity along the Rail Corridor in the vicinity of Ulu Pandan, which is one of two ecological corridors identified in NParks’ EPE. We are proposing other green features, such as about five hectares of greenery on the eastern side of the site and along Ulu Pandan Canal for park and recreational use, and a linear park along the canal too,” Dr Chong elaborates.
Building for the future
Ultimately, one of HDB’s key goals is to integrate natural elements into its development plans, and its developments into their green surroundings. “At the macro level, we try to preserve pockets of space where we can. We also go down to the micro level to look at things like how to protect trees and species we know are important,” he says. With these efforts, Singapore could become greener as it grows denser.
For residents like Mr Firdaus and his family, the proof is in the verdant greenery all around them. In Bidadari, which was built with the vision of “A Community in a Garden”, the Bidadari Park alone occupies 10 ha, more than a tenth of the estate’s land area, and is home to more than 350 conserved mature trees and 2,000 new trees that include critically endangered varieties.
Nestled seamlessly within the site’s lush and hilly landscape, it is also a sanctuary for wildlife, with its shrubs, trees, flowering plants and connections to other nature ways facilitating their movement around the park and to other parts of Singapore.
Dr Chong shares: “The world has become more environmentally conscious, more in tune with the built environment’s impact on flora and fauna. When we talk about sustainability, it’s thinking about how to better preserve the natural heritage that has been given to us, and making sure that future generations can enjoy the environment we grew up in.”
Find out how HDB plans and builds its housing estates. Also, read more on how it works with trusted companies to deliver homes that meet people's needs and desires.
