As a middle-age suburban town, Yishun with heritage and has transformed into the northern hub in Sigapore since its opening with Yishun MRT station in 1988. Today under the Land Use Plan and HDB’s Remaking Our Heartland programme, the government is systematically remaking Yishun Town into a vibrant hub and great outdoors.
According to HDB’s blueprint on enriching Yishun, there are more facilities and upgrades for shopping, foods &beverages, community service, healthcare, outdoors, housing, transport, and so on.
Good progress has been made to enrich Yishun Town. Let’s look at some inforgraphic. In the region defined by Yishun Avenue 2 and Yishun Central, some significant projects such as Northpoint Shopping Centre Upgrading and Extension with Yishun Public Library, Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, Improvement of Pedestrian Mall, Rejuvenation of Yishun Pond and Heritage Garden have been completed and put into use.
Those are just parts of the masterpiece if we outlook the big picture of Yishun Central. Read on, and let us go through the details about what’re happened, are happening, and planning for transforming Yishun Town.
- Shopping, dinning and community facilities
1) Northpoint City
The most exciting developments in Yishun Town should be a landmark mixed development at Yishun Centre – Northpoint City.
The said development is a mixed commercial/residential development next to Northpoint Shopping Centre and will built integrated with new air-conditioned bus interchange and a community club, connected with Yishun MRT station and upcoming Town Plaza. Such kind of mixed developments at MRT station have been popular. Some good cases in point are previously developed Hillion Residences at Bukit Panjang MRT station and Bedok Residences at Bedok MRT station. When completed by 2020, Yishun residents can enjoy an array of shopping, dining, leisure and entertainment facilities. This new development opposite Yishun MRT station will be much bigger and add further buzz and vibrancy to the Yishun Town Centre.
2) Upgraded and extended Northpoint Shopping Centre
Similarly, the refurbished Northpoint Shopping Centre boasts an expanded retail and dining mix with the completion of extension works.
With a combined net lettable area of 235,536 sqf, the new integrated Northpoint boasts a mix of services and retail tenants such as Japanese-themed food court Ishi Mura and Bakerzin, amongst others. Other tenants include Cold Storage, Harvey Norman, POPULAR Bookstore and Timezone.
Other new features at the shopping hub comprise the Yishun Public Library which serves as a reading and learning haven for residents of all ages, and
The mall also features a new 5,400 sq ft multi-play wet and dry playground on its roof top. These specially imported play structures are designed to provide a fun and interactive play experience for children.
3) Improvements to Pedestrian Mall
To create a more conducive shopping environment, the Pedestrian Mall at the Town Centre has been upgraded with a community plaza, green gateways and enhanced barrier-free accessibility.
4) New Town Plaza–Epicentre of Civic & Community Events
The proposed town plaza is adjacent to the said Land at the southeast. The town plaza is envisaged to be the vibrant civic epicentre of Yishun Town Centre – a gathering place for community events.
The town plaza comprises: a sheltered public event space and sheltered food & beverage (F&B) facilities contributing to the activity in the event spaces.
The town plaza has been planned together with the said Land, albeit with separate ownership. When developed together, they can mutually reinforce each other through their design, retail and activity mix, community participation and a sustainable operating model. The planning, analysis and design of the said Land and town plaza shall be carried out holistically to result in an optimized scheme that can complement and satisfy all stakeholders’ needs.
- Recreation and outdoors
- The rejuvenated Yishun Pond, which is located next to the Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, is a green healing oasis with ecologically-friendly features. Its iconic feature, The Spiral@Yishun, a three-storey lookout tower set amidst the lush landscaping of Yishun Pond, offers visitors a panoramic view of the Town Centre. It also provides visitors easy access to the Yishun Park via an 84-metre overhead pedestrian bridge.
- Family Bay & Rowers’ Bay
Capitalising on the land and water resources in Yishun, a new Family Bay and Rowers’ Bay at Lower Seletar Reservoir have been created to enable residents to view water activities from the terraced amphitheatre, experience cultural performances and participate in competitive rowing events along a 2 km water channel.
2) Upgraded Parks
To enhance community interaction and bonding, Yishun Park, as well as the parks at Neighbourhoods 6 and 8, were upgraded with new facilities such as children’s playgrounds, jogging paths, shelters and elderly fitness corners.
3) Cycling Path
A dedicated 15.5 km cycling path in Yishun to facilitate cycling and bring about greater convenience and safety to cyclists and pedestrians is underway. The path connects major transport nodes, neighbourhood centres and parks to provide better connectivity within the town and beyond, is implemented in two phases. The first phase spanning 1.7 km and connecting Yishun and Khatib MRT stations was completed in Mar 2011. The second phase links up the remaining part of Yishun, and is slated for completion in 2015.
- Medical and health care
As an indispensible commitment to the northern residents, the new Khoo Teck Paut hospital (KTPH) finally opened in 2010 as the first integrated general hospital in the north. It is just next to Yishun Pond and existing Yishun polyclinic. Shuttle us services are provided between KTPH and Yishun MRT station.
Another good news is the upcoming Yishun community hospital. For better services of healthcare, the government has planned to build more regional community hospitals. Yishun Community Hospital (YCH), sited next to Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, is planned to open in 2015.
The 428-bed community hospital aims to cater to the intermediate care and rehabilitation needs of patients in the North. The northern patients can benefit from the integration of the two hospitals in terms of physical proximity, information flow and treatment plans. In this way, the patient’s recovery will be a well-coordinated, hassle-free experience.
- Providing more residential choices
More than 17,000 new residential units, comprising both public and private developments, will be added to Yishun since the ROH plans were unveiled. Thus far, HDB has launched 10 Build-to-Order (BTO) projects and one Design, Build and Sell Scheme (DBSS) project, providing a total of 9,500 units. Seven private housing sites yielding close to 3,300 units were awarded to private developers for Executive Condominiums/Condominiums and landed housing developments. These provide more housing choices to meet the aspirations of residents in Yishun who wish to upgrade or buy a new home, as well as attract others who wish to move to Yishun.
- Public Housing Projects – BTO/DBSS Flats
(i) Jade Spring @ Yishun (960 units, completed in Jun 2011)
(ii) Dew Spring @ Yishun (864 units, completed in May 2012)
(iii) DBSS Adora Green (806 units, estimated completion in 4Q 2013)
(iv) Floral Spring @ Yishun (600 units, estimated completion in 1Q 2014)
(v) Yishun Greenwalk (1,400 units, estimated completion in 3Q 2014)
(vi) Vista Spring @ Yishun (696 units, estimated completion in 3Q 2014)
(vii) Yishun Riverwalk (1,408 units, estimated completion in 4Q 2014)
(viii) Yishun Natura (364 units, estimated completion in 4Q 2014)
(ix) Orchid Spring @ Yishun (948 units, estimated completion in 4Q 2014)
(x) Acacia Breeze @ Yishun (834 units, estimated completion in 1Q 2015)
(xi) Oleander Breeze @ Yishun (688 units, estimated completion in 3Q 2016)
2. Public Housing Projects – Rental Housing
(i) Rental flats at Yishun St 11 (392 units, completed in Sep 2011)
(ii) Rental flats at Yishun Ave 11 (352 units, completed in Dec 2009)
(iii) Rental flats at Yishun St 22 (476 units, estimated completion in 2Q 2015)
(iv) Oleander Breeze @ Yishun (576 units, estimated completion in 3Q 2016)
3.Private Housing Developments- Executive Condominiums
(i) The Canopy (406 units, estimated completion in Sep 2013)
(ii) One Canberra (665 units, estimated completion in Jan 2015)
(iii) The Brownstone (638 units, estimated completion in 2018)
(iv) Signature at Yishun(525 units, estimated completion in 2018)
(v) The Criterion (505 units, estimated completion in 2018)
4.Private Housing Developments – Private Condominiums
(i) The Estuary (608 units, completed in Apr 2013)
(ii) The Miltonia Residences (410 units, estimated completion in Sep 2015)
(iii) Skies Miltonia (355 units, estimated completion in Oct 2015)
(iv) Eight Courtyards (654 units, estimated Completion in Jun 2016)
(v) Nine Junction: mixed commercial and residential development at Yishun Ring Rd/Yishun Ave 9 (186 units, estimated completion: Jan 2018)
(vi) Northpark Residences (920 units, estimated completion: 2019)
- Improving Accessibility to Yishun
As part of the ongoing road enhancement works, a new road Yishun Avenue 8 linking Yishun Avenue 6 and the dam at Lower Seletar Reservoir will be built, and part of Yishun Avenue 1 and Seletar West Link will be widened. These road works which are scheduled for completion in 2015, will lighten the traffic along Yishun Avenue 2 and Lentor Avenue.
– New road linking Yishun Avenue 6 and the dam at Lower Seletar Reservoir
– Widening part of Yishun Avenue 1 and Seletar West Link (Estimated Completion: 2015)
- Benefit from state-level planning
Yishun residents will also benefit from the latest transport system development and regional planning from Land Use Plan.
Singapore government has strategically planned to expand and upgrade the country transport system to cater population and economy growth. To our pleasure, Yishun residents will benefit from two big transport developments by the time of 2020, Thomson MRT Line and North South Expressway.
Thomson Line starting from Woodlands North and ending at Marina Bay aims to provide more convenient connectivity for northern residents to the downtown area. There are two Springleaf and Lenor MRT Stations close to Yishun Town.
Another giant project is North South Expressway starting from Admiralty Road, parallel and close to Gabas Avenue and Sembawang Road in the north to the downtown area. The NSE expressway will effectively alleviate the traffic of CTE once it’s completed by 2020.
As announced in early this year under Land Use plan, Woodlands Regional Centre (WRC) has been confirmed as the third country-level regional centre after Tampines Regional Centre in 1992 and Jurong Lake District in 2008. The forth one, Seletar Regional Centre (SRC) is also planned after WRC.
Over the longer term, the Seletar Regional Centre has the potential to grow to two times that of the Tampines Regional Centre. Located next to it is the Seletar Aerospace Park which will provide a range of activities including training, research and development. The Seletar Regional Centre and Seletar Aerospace Park will be a major employment node for people living in the North and Northeast.
Further more, as a long term strategy, the government has figures out North Coast Innovation Corridor (NCIC) and aims to make the future north coast an innovative, economic corridor buzzing with ideas, creative design and new technologies. It will span from Woodlands Regional Centre, Sembawang, the future Seletar Regional Centre to the learning corridor and creative cluster at Punggol.
We can regard it as the corresponding to Iskandar of Johor which looks developing very fast in recent years. As a small step, the government plans to relocate Sembawang Shipyard to free up the coastline land for more business activities. Yishun residents fortunately sites in the NICC and are close to WRC and SRC. Life will never be the same.