Reflections on the Sunset Way Engagement Session

I attended the Sunset Way engagement session on 17 July and left with a heaviness I struggle to name.

I walked in hoping—perhaps naively—that HDB had learnt from Dover Forest and that residents’ voices would this time genuinely shape the outcome. Instead, the same playbook was deployed. The plans felt already decided and the session felt like a final item on a checklist before the first tree fell. Were we invited to influence a decision or simply to witness one?

For three hours, my neighbours shared thoughtful concerns—environmental, educational, recreational, health, heritage, community. People came prepared, spoke with respect and love for this place and genuinely wanted to help. Yet a sinking feeling would not leave me: we were heard, but were we listened to? There is a difference and everyone in the room felt it.

One attendee remarked that if the format was designed simply to let us vent, therapy would have been a better use of our Friday evening. We laughed a little—the kind of laughter that covers an ache.

Let me be clear, I respect HDB’s extraordinary contribution to Singapore. Throughout the session, we were patiently taught how the planning system works—how land is allocated, how agencies coordinate, how decisions are made. But one question lingered, where do people fit?

Where is the Human Impact Assessment?

There was much discussion of the Environmental Impact Assessment—rightly so, for biodiversity matters. But where is the Human Impact Assessment? Has anyone studied, with equal rigour, what this development means for those who call this place home? For the resident whose daily walk among the trees is his anchor, his peace, his medicine? For a community whose memories live in a landscape about to be cleared?

Well-being, identity, belonging—these are harder to measure than flora and fauna, but no less real. If we can commission a study on plants and animals, we owe equal care to the people whose lives will be changed forever.

What will we tell our children?

An educator shared that in our schools, we teach sustainability, conservation and active citizenship. We encourage students to care for nature and believe their voices can make a difference. We speak of student agency—empowering the young to think critically, speak up respectfully, and help shape their communities.

And yet here we are, cutting down a forest.

One question of hers has echoed in my mind since: how do we answer our children when they ask, “Why did we cut down the forest?”. It's worth recalling that Singapore, together with 130 other countries, pledged to end deforestation by 2030. 

Children learn far more from what we do than what we say. If they watch us practise active citizenship exactly as we taught them—only to see nothing change—they may conclude that participation is a performance and caring is naive. If we hope to raise a generation that believes in protecting nature and shaping its own future, our actions must reflect the values we ask them to embrace.

Why the hurry?

Residents asked repeatedly about the timeline, and beneath every question lay the same worry: why the rush? Some wondered whether it was tied to the opening of Maju MRT station in 2032. Others questioned the speed at which the studies behind the EIA report had been completed, a concern the surveyor themselves flagged within the report.

Either way, one principle deserves to be stated plainly: the pace of development should never outweigh getting the planning right. These decisions will shape this place for generations. Taking time to study alternatives and weigh human impact alongside environmental impact is not delay—it is good planning.

And genuine engagement should happen while different futures are still possible. What if we had been consulted earlier, before the plans hardened? To be invited in only at the end is to be asked to say goodbye, not to decide.

Good town planning is not only about optimising land, it is about the texture of human lives. People are not an obstacle to planning—we are the reason for it. The question should not only be “Can we build here?” but “Should we?”—and if we do, how do we build without destroying the distinct identity and character that make this place worth living in? 

A forest that took decades to grow deserves more than a few people reading reports and drawing lines before irreversible decisions are made. The people whose lives are woven into it deserve to know their voices can shape the outcome—not merely be acknowledged and filed away.

Three reasonable requests

So here is what we ask of HDB, concretely:

 1. Publish the feedback gathered at these sessions, alongside HDB’s response to each major concern—so residents can see what changed, and what didn’t and why.

 2. Commission an independent study of alternatives, including partial retention of the forest and assess human impact with the same rigour given to flora and fauna.

 3. Pause irreversible works until both are complete and shared with the community.

None of this stops development. It simply ensures that when the first tree falls—if it must—we will know the decision was made carefully, transparently and with the people it affects.

“No one will care about what they have never experienced”

Yesterday at Maju Forest, I watched two siblings, five and seven, clamber over roots, crouching to watch insects and tilt their heads at every birdcall. When I asked their father why they’d traded manicured playgrounds for muddy trails, he smiled: “Life is never just a walk in the park. Out here, character and resilience are forged and tested.”

Perhaps that is what forests have always done—not merely preserve nature but nourished and cultivated the human spirit. The real question is not what we build next but what we choose to carry forward.

Don’t let your voice end at a signature. Spare a few few minutes to do this:

• HDB feedback form (closes 6 Aug): Link
• Write to your MP: Link
• Send this to one person who's walked the old railway line.

🌳 For the forest, 

The Save Maju Forest petition  
IG: @SaveMajuForest