Building of BTO flats in Clementi, Toa Payoh, Bukit Merah begins

Hundreds of new Housing Board Build-To-Order (BTO) flats that have yet to be announced for sale are being built in Clementi, Toa Payoh and Bukit Merah.

Some 753 units will sprout up on a plot of about 1.6ha near the intersection of Clementi Avenue 6 and Commonwealth Avenue West, while construction for 741 units is under way on a 1.7ha site at the intersection of Braddell Rise and Toa Payoh Rise, based on checks by The Straits Times at the respective sites.

HDB also received permission from the Building and Construction Authority in August to begin structural work for 1,462 flats on a Bukit Merah housing site in Alexandra Road.

Of the 1,462 units, 964 are part of the Alexandra Peaks project launched in December 2023, while the remaining 498 units will be built next to Alexandra Peaks in a development that has not been launched for sale.

The new Clementi flats are being built on a site vacated under a Selective En bloc Redevelopment Scheme (Sers) project announced in 2005 as part of efforts to rejuvenate the Clementi town centre. Sers allows the Government to renew older estates by redeveloping flats on land with high development potential.

According to HDB notices put up near the site, work on the 753 flats – comprising two-, three- and four-room units – began on Sept 20. The flats are set to be completed by the first quarter of 2029.

An information panel on-site states that there will be four residential blocks – three 40-storey blocks and a 34-storey block – as well as a childcare centre, an eating house, a minimart, a precinct pavilion and a seven-storey carpark with a roof garden.

Mr Nicholas Mak, chief research officer at property portal Mogul.sg, said the Clementi flats are likely to be Plus flats as they are outside the central region, but are about 300m from Clementi MRT station and the town centre.

Meanwhile, work on the 741 units in Toa Payoh started in the middle of 2024 and is set to be completed in the second quarter of 2029.

There will be two 40-storey towers as well as a multi-storey carpark, a childcare centre, a commercial building and two precinct pavilions, according to an information board at the site, which is across the road from the upcoming Toa Payoh Ridge BTO project.

First Toa Payoh Primary School had once occupied the site, which was re-zoned for residential use in February 2023.

Mr Mak said the flats are likely to come under the Plus category, as they fall outside the city centre but are about 300m from Caldecott MRT station, an interchange for the Circle and Thomson-East Coast lines.

Noting that newer four- and five-room resale flats in Toa Payoh with locational attributes similar to this project have fetched at least $1 million, Mr Mak said it is likely that HDB will have to factor significant subsidies into the sale prices.

Over in Bukit Merah, the as-yet-to-be-announced 498-unit BTO project will be built at the intersection of Prince Charles Crescent and Alexandra Road. It will sit on a 1.4ha site where Alexandra Post Office once stood. The post office closed in June 2023.

Mr Mak said the upcoming flats are likely to fall in the Plus category, as they are on the city fringe and about 400m from Redhill MRT station, which is a few stops from the Central Business District.

Construction work on the neighbouring Alexandra Peaks project began in June and is set to be completed in the second quarter of 2029, according to an HDB notice at a nearby block of flats.

Future residents can tap amenities that are being built as part of Alexandra Peaks, such as a pre-school, an eating house, a minimart, shops and a residents’ network centre.

Alexandra Peaks was launched under the Prime Location Public Housing model – the forerunner of the present Prime flats.

None of the upcoming flats in Clementi, Toa Payoh or Bukit Merah are part of the February 2025 BTO exercise, indicating that they will likely be launched later in 2025 at the earliest. February’s exercise will offer about 5,000 flats in Kallang/Whampoa, Queenstown, Woodlands and Yishun.

HDB chief executive Tan Meng Dui said in October that the board had been working with other government agencies to make project sites available earlier.

Construction work then starts many months – or even more than a year – before a project is launched, which is why flats with shorter waits can be offered, he added.

Separately, the supply of new flats in Ang Mo Kio will get a boost with the upcoming Pine Ville @ AMK project – the replacement site for residents of 606 units affected by a Sers project in Ang Mo Kio Avenue 3 that was announced in April 2022.

Construction for the 1,068-unit project is continuing, and is slated for completion in the third quarter of 2027. It will have two-room flexi, three-room and four-room flats across six blocks.

The project will also have a single-storey commercial block, and an eight-storey carpark with a kidney dialysis centre and a childcare centre.

Of the 606 households affected by the Sers exercise, 104 had successfully applied for new flats in BTO exercises in May and August 2022, HDB said previously. This will shrink the pool that will take up flats at Pine Ville @ AMK.

The rest of the flats in the project will likely go on sale at a Sale of Balance Flats (SBF) exercise, which takes place once a year.

The next such exercise will be in February 2025, when more than 5,500 balance flats will be put up for sale in the largest SBF exercise yet.