Petition Update: What Parliament Actually Said About Gillman Barracks and Maju Forest
On 4 August, Parliament spent the majority of question time on our two sites. Minister of State Alvin Tan took questions 1 to 18 together and answered supplementaries from MPs on both sides. Below is what was said, what was conceded, and what was left unanswered.
The deadline has not moved. Official HDB feedback closes 6 August 2026, 6pm. If you have not submitted, do it today.
The headline: the sites will be developed
The most consequential exchange came from Mr Andre Low, who asked whether not proceeding remains an option on either site, rather than only adjusting boundaries and adding mitigation.
The answer was no. MOS Tan replied that both sites are already zoned residential under the Master Plan, and that “we will proceed, but how we build is important.”
This is the clearest statement of the sitting. The consultation is about how much is retained and how it is designed — not whether the forests stay. Ms Eileen Chong drew out the same point from the other direction: the Master Plan gives indicative yields for Newton (5,000), Paterson (1,000) and Bayshore (10,000–12,000) because those plans are firm. No yield is published for Sunset Way or Gillman because these are not.
That is the space we still have to work in. It is narrower than “save the forest,” but it is real.
What the government committed to
Four commitments were made on the floor, and are worth holding them to:
- Engagement will continue past 6 August. Said to Mr Dennis Tan, Mr Kenneth Foo and Mr Christopher de Souza.
- A response report will be published, summarising agencies’ replies to feedback and any amendments to the plans — the closest thing to the NCCS-style document Dr Charlene Chen requested.
- Fewer homes have already been designed in to retain green and heritage areas. Conserve more, build fewer. That trade-off is live.
- Arts tenants at Gillman will be supported by SLA and NAC toward relocation (Ms Joan Pereira).
A caution on point 1. Ms Eileen Chong asked whether the formal consultation window is being extended — as with Dover Forest in 2021 — or whether the ministry will merely keep talking to stakeholders after it closes. She did not get a clean answer. Treat 6 August as the hard deadline until we see otherwise in writing.
What is on the table for retention
Gillman Barracks. Most of the native-dominated secondary forest; an east–west link between Telok Blangah Hill Park and HortPark; a new north–south bird corridor toward Berlayar Creek and Labrador Nature Reserve. Corridors are set at a 30-metre minimum, reaching 200 metres. On heritage: all buildings of exceptional significance and most of high significance, with documentation, salvage and interpretation where one cannot be kept.
Sunset Way / Maju. A stretch of greenery along the former Jurong Railway Line, plus a natural stream and its riparian buffer, supplemented with native trees.
Responding to Ms Rachel Ong, the MOS confirmed the Gillman EIA drew on the Berlayar and Keppel Club assessments and NParks’ Ecological Profiling Exercise, and acknowledged connectivity between the adjacent sites — while maintaining that each EIA differs because each site is unique.
The alternative sites ledger
MPs put forward a long list. How each was answered:
- Clementi Ave 5, Albert Winsemius Lane / the MCB at Sunset Way (Mr de Souza) — active Cross Island Line worksites; Clementi Ave 5 to be considered after the line is complete.
- Protective Security Command, Ulu Pandan (Mr Dennis Tan) — said to be already set aside for residential use.
- Maju Camp — required for defence.
- Former CMPB / Depot Road Camp, Pasir Panjang reserve site — still needed by MINDEF and other users, including the MOE Outdoor Adventure Learning Centre; long term only.
- Depot Lane Industrial Estate — already in the housing pipeline; demolition underway.
- Black-and-white bungalow grounds (Mr Kenneth Foo) — where feasible, already redeveloped or earmarked; Seletar Camp cited, Medway Park to follow.
- Car workshops near Alexandra Village Food Centre (Mr Kenneth Foo) — not addressed.
- Greater Southern Waterfront’s 7,000–20,000 units (Ms He Ting Ru) — whether that supply makes these sites unnecessary went unanswered.
- Bringing forward VERS (Ms Eileen Chong) — a long-term renewal policy “not specifically linked” to these decisions. No comparison offered.
Mr de Souza pressed the Dover Forest precedent, where roughly half the site was preserved, and asked for a “win-win-win.” He received an acknowledgement of his advocacy rather than a commitment.
The questions that were not answered
This is where our submissions should concentrate. The following went unanswered or were answered only in general terms:
- The threshold of harm. Mr Kenneth Foo asked what happens when an EIA returns a “major negative” assessment. The reply treated it as a technical term and said impacts cannot always be avoided. No decision rule given.
- Avoidance criteria and minimum viability. Ms Nadia Samdin asked what would cause a site to be avoided altogether, whether a minimum viable habitat size is being optimised for, and how retained forest will be monitored for habitat quality, stormwater attenuation and cooling. No thresholds or metrics were given.
- Urban heat modelling. Mr Dennis Tan asked whether HDB has modelled temperature impacts on surrounding neighbourhoods. The reply listed generic measures — wind-flow modelling, cool paint, block orientation — but no site-specific results.
- The demand figures. Mr Dennis Tan and Ms Eileen Chong asked MND to publish the population and household-formation projections driving these sites, and how much demand is local versus planned population growth. Not published. The evidence offered was that Clementi Emerald and Belilios Rise were each oversubscribed fourfold.
- EIAs before zoning. Mr Dennis Tan, Ms Nadia Samdin, Ms Rachel Ong, Ms Valerie Lee and Ms He Ting Ru all pushed for assessment and consultation at the master-planning stage, before land is committed. No precedent was cited, no change promised.
- Green quantity versus quality. Mr Fazli made the sharpest point of the debate: replacing secondary forest with a park preserves the hectare count while destroying the ecology. The 7,800-hectare and 1,000-hectare figures were repeated in reply.
- Non-market valuation. Ms Valerie Lee’s proposal to build existence, bequest and cultural value into the evaluation framework was not taken up.
- Affordability at Maju. Dr Charlene Chen asked whether the hilly terrain’s construction costs would pass to buyers. No answer.
Where was MSE?
Mr Kenneth Foo raised what many nature observers have told us directly: that MSE has been conspicuously absent from these decisions, in the very year it designated the Year of Climate Adaptation.
The MSE Minister’s reply was about process — the Government arrives at one position, and anyone hoping for a public split between ministries would be disappointed. That may be accurate. But unfortunately, that’s not the question.
What we still have not heard is MSE’s own assessment. Were the heat, stormwater and climate-resilience consequences of removing this canopy formally evaluated — by whom, at what stage, and does that evaluation exist in a form the public can read?
A ministry can speak with one voice and still show its working. The adaptation case for clearing roughly 25 hectares of mature canopy should be on paper somewhere. Ask for it in your submission.
My afterthoughts
These sites aren’t abstractions to me. After a full day of hectares and yields and mitigation frameworks, it’s a strange thing to hear something you love discussed as a figure that can be right-sized.
But I don’t think the MPs who want homes near parents are wrong. I want that too. So let the justification be real. If “near parents” is what’s clearing these hectares, let it also decide who gets the flats — a 5km proximity requirement, with the large majority of units, say 80%, reserved for applicants who qualify. As things stand, anyone can ballot regardless of where their parents live. Without that link, we’d be trading a forest for a need the policy doesn’t quite secure.
What stayed with me afterwards wasn’t the numbers. It was Dover Forest — proof that half a forest was once kept because people carried on asking after the deadline had passed. And it was a father sending a photo at two in the morning: two children, one sign, please save the forest.
The plans aren’t final. That isn’t a consolation prize. It’s the reason tomorrow’s letter still matters more than yesterday’s grief.
What to do now
- Submit official HDB feedback before 6pm on 6 August. As of 28 July, HDB had 2,712 responses on Sunset Way and 860 on Gillman. Petition signatures do not enter the official record — submissions do. Link
- Write to your MP. Members on both sides carried our concerns into the chamber. That worked. Keep supplying them.Link
- Link to Parliament session: Link
- Be specific. Ask for the unanswered items by name: the demand projections, the site-specific heat modelling, the avoidance criteria and minimum viable habitat thresholds, MSE’s climate assessment, and monitoring commitments for retained forest. General opposition is easy to answer; specific requests are harder to leave on the table.
Stay engaged after 6 August. The Government committed on the record to further engagement and to publishing its response report. We should be there when it does.
The forests are not saved. The plans are also not final. Between those two facts is the work of the next few weeks.
For the forest 🌳
The Save Maju Forest petition
IG: @savemajuforest