More plants, trees at new HDB housing estates with rollout of green requirements

SINGAPORE — House owners collecting the keys to their flats this year can look forward to seeing more plants and trees around their new homes.

All public housing projects that were designed from 2016 will have to comply with new greenery requirements by the Housing and Development Board (HDB) that were introduced in the same year.

These flats will progressively be ready from 2020, HDB said in a media release on Sunday (Jan 12).

The first projects designed under the new provisions to be ready this year are: Tampines GreenView, Bedok North Woods, West Plains@Bukit Batok, Anchorvale Plains and Tampines GreenBloom & GreenFlora.

Joining the list next year are new estates in Tampines, Bidadari, Tengah and Punggol Northshore.

From 2016, all new HDB developments have to meet the minimum green plot ratio of 4.5. This means that the greenery needs to cover an area at least 4.5 times the size of the housing estate.

This takes into account the canopy size, the density of trees as well as vertical landscaping, where the sides of an HDB block could be covered with a green wall.

In the same year, the housing agency also adopted a green cover provision of between 45 and 60 per cent.

This means that green cover as seen from the sky needs to be at least 45 per cent of the area of the housing estate.

HDB piloted the implementation of these requirements at several housing estates at Dawson, which is in Queenstown, and Keat Hong in Choa Chu Kang, although they were designed before 2016.

And now the housing agency wants to roll it out to all public housing projects designed from 2016.

Some examples as to what has been done and will be added to the estates at Dawson:

• About 2,150 new trees, such as the Trumpet Tree, have been planted

• Mature trees, such as Angsana trees, in the estate have been kept to enhance vegetation

• A 200-metre-long eco-corridor to connect SkyPark@Dawson and SkyVille@Dawson will be added

Some examples as to what has been done and will be added to the estates at Keat Hong:

• Integrated neighbourhood parks and park connectors

• Existing mature trees in the neighbourhood retained

• Residential blocks built such that there is a “generous” distance between them and good views of the roof garden