Public Opposes Housing Development Plans in Singapore Urban Forests

Government proposals to clear large tracts of urban forest in Singapore for residential construction have sparked rare public pushback, marked by mass petitions, community-led advocacy, and a public demonstration in the tightly regulated city-state.

Under plans announced by Singapore’s Housing and Development Board, roughly 15 hectares of the 23-hectare Maju Forest in the Sunset Way estate will be cleared to construct residential units. The government also intends to clear at least 10 hectares of Gillman Forest, located approximately six kilometers south of Maju Forest. In response, residents and environmental advocates have organized town hall meetings, conducted educational heritage walks, and started public petitions that have gathered over 60,000 signatures calling for the projects to be canceled or modified.

The opposition culminated in a public rally of more than 2,000 people at Speakers’ Corner in Hong Lim Park, which serves as Singapore’s only designated site where citizens can legally gather and speak publicly without a police permit. Organizers from the independent group SG Climate Rally highlighted growing public desire for environmental preservation and greater public involvement in urban planning. In addition, grassroots initiatives have emerged online, including a Telegram group of nearly 800 members formed by local resident Victoria to help citizens digest technical environmental reports and draft feedback for public agencies.

Official environmental impact assessments commissioned for the sites revealed significant biodiversity. Gillman Forest was found to support 178 animal species, while Maju Forest supports 113 animal species. The affected areas serve as habitats for wildlife including the Sunda pangolin, monitor lizards, long-tailed macaques, and the critically endangered straw-headed bulbul. Singapore is home to about one-third of the global straw-headed bulbul population, which is estimated to total between 600 and 1,700 birds worldwide.

Government officials have defended the housing developments as necessary to meet high demand in the land-constrained nation. In parliament, Minister of State for National Development Alvin Tan pointed out that public housing launches are oversubscribed by more than four times, maintaining that Singapore must “make the best use of our limited land.”

The controversy coincides with wider national discussions regarding development priorities following Prime Minister Lawrence Wong’s announcement of plans to combine several southern islands via land reclamation for industrial, power, and defense infrastructure. Furthermore, a 2023 study published in the journal Sustainability projected that Singapore is on track to clear 7,331 hectares of forest for new developments, an area 1.2 times the size of all existing parks and nature reserves in the country combined.

Background

Singapore has historically operated under a top-down urban planning model, with public demonstrations strictly regulated under local laws. Protests are generally confined to Speakers’ Corner in Hong Lim Park, making public rallies over infrastructure and housing policy unusual in the city-state.

Since 1967, when founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew initiated national tree-planting campaigns, Singapore has promoted itself as a “Garden City,” a concept that has since evolved into the government’s official “City in Nature” policy framework. Internationally, Singapore is also a signatory to the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, pledging alongside more than 130 nations to halt deforestation by 2030.

Tensions between development needs and environmental conservation have surfaced in previous urban projects. In a notable instance involving Dover Forest—a 33-hectare site in western Singapore—public pushback led authorities to retain a substantial section of the land as a nature park rather than fully clearing it for housing.