SINGAPORE – The upcoming 60ha Bayshore housing precinct in Upper East Coast Road will have a new central park, which will be part of a network of green spaces throughout the estate.
These green spaces will serve as recreational areas for residents and provide “conducive habitats for flora and fauna to thrive”, said the Housing Board on Friday in a report responding to public feedback on an environmental study for the area published in November 2022.
That environmental study revealed that 31ha of forested areas is slated for clearance by 2029 to make way for the new housing precinct, which will have a mix of public and private housing among its 10,000 homes.
It also stated that land parcels would take four to six years to be developed thereafter – subject to review – indicating that homes in Bayshore are likely to be ready from the mid-2030s.
On Friday, HDB said it received 93 responses to the study, and had engaged various nature group representatives who suggested tweaks to plans for the estate to minimise potential impacts to the environment.
“Many have requested to retain the greenery at Bayshore and requested other sites to be developed instead,” said HDB, adding that others supported new housing developments “but hoped to see a balance between development needs and greenery”.
Noting that the land in Bayshore was reclaimed for residential use in the 1990s and has been earmarked for housing since 1998, HDB said: “Over the years, we recognise that vegetation, and its attendant biodiversity, has emerged on-site.
“The environmental impact assessment findings show that the vegetation and biodiversity at Bayshore is of lower conservation significance.”
HDB also said that it will be challenging to retain existing trees, as ground levels need to be raised to meet minimum flood protection standards.
Where possible, the board said, it will study retaining trees at localised areas.
The authorities’ plans for the estate include a central park with recreational features, a linear park that features seawalls and a pavilion that marks the area’s pre-reclamation coastline, as well as green spaces in each of Bayshore’s housing developments.
While HDB did not indicate the size of these features, checks by The Sunday Times on the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s 2019 master plan indicate that the central and linear parks will collectively make up about 3ha – equivalent to about four football fields.
In addition, HDB’s conceptual plan for Bayshore indicates there will be eight green spaces within housing developments.
HDB said Bayshore will be landscaped to attract biodiversity.
Conservation-significant plants will be transplanted “where needed”, and replanted within the area’s new parks and green spaces where possible, to restore and support biodiversity within the site.
The environmental study had recorded 196 flora species, of which about half are native, including 16 that are of conservation significance.
HDB said species that are critical to the ecosystem, such as fruiting plants and butterfly host plants, will be replanted, adding that the new parks and green spaces will have water-sensitive features – naturalised drains, bioswales and riparian plants – to increase the habitats available for aquatic fauna.
In designing public housing projects for Bayshore, HDB said it will consider setting aside at least 25 per cent of the total site area for water catchment features such as rain gardens.
The board also said “a possible connection to East Coast Park will be studied to provide direct access to the larger green areas along the coast”.
Based on previously exhibited plans for Bayshore, this could take the form of a landscaped bridge over the East Coast Parkway.
Animals encountered during vegetation clearance will be moved to another place at the advice of the National Parks Board, said HDB.
This includes the four species which were targeted for translocation in the environmental study report – the common palm civet (Paradoxurus musangus), the common tree shrew (Tupaia glis), the painted bronzeback (Dendrelaphis pictus) and the equatorial spitting cobra (Naja sumatrana).
Nature Society (Singapore) president Shawn Lum said the establishment of a green network within Bayshore provides the authorities with a chance to be specific and targeted in its objectives for the green spaces, beyond just having them as a generic “home for nature”.
For instance, if the authorities are serious about establishing a complex ecosystem, they could try to attract bird species commonly found in forests, such drongos and the olive-winged bulbul, said Dr Lum.
A minimum benchmark could be species already common in other neighbourhoods, like the black-naped oriole, he added.
Now that the fate of Bayshore’s forest has been made clear, this makes a nearby forest – a 12ha forested patch similarly developed on reclaimed land that is part of East Coast Park – even more valuable, Dr Lum said, both for biodiversity and as a case study for the regenerative potential of coastal forests on reclaimed land.
Citing the authorities’ plans to develop the Greater Southern Waterfront and reclaim a long island off the east coast, Dr Lum, a botanist at Nanyang Technological University, said these offer opportunities to “recreate ecosystems that have been lost to development, through redevelopment, deliberate restoration and natural regeneration”.
“It is not a stretch to say that children born today, could, in their adulthood, see a thriving coastal ecosystem that their parents would not have known,” said Dr Lum, who referenced the finding of sea olive (Olea brachiata) plants in the Bayshore forest, which are otherwise only found in select coastal areas in Singapore such as on Pulau Ubin and Sentosa, and in small patches in Changi and Labrador.
Noting that environmental considerations were unlikely to be top of mind for planners when the east coast was reclaimed decades ago, he said: “It is time we make holistic plans and establish the role and place of nature in the already densely populated and popular east coast, which could bring significant quality of life improvements.”
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