Why Buy an HDB Flat in Ang Mo Kio?

Mention Ang Mo Kio to the older residents in Singapore and they will probably share with you an interesting story of the estate’s name.

Why Ang Mo Kio?

Ang Mo Kio in Hokkien literally means the ‘red-haired man’s bridge’, where ang mo is a colloquial term for a Caucasian person. The name makes reference to the bridge over Kallang River in the area, built by Johnson Turnball Thomson, Government Surveyor of the Straits Settlement from 1841 to 1853.

The town was largely uninhabited until the rubber boom at the beginning of the 20th century, which brought cultivation and habitation to the Chinese district. Ang Mo Kio comprised mainly farms and attap houses scattered among rubber estates.

What Makes Ang Mo Kio New Town Interesting?

Ang Mo Kio New Town has seven neighbourhoods, with Neighbourhood 1 to the west, cycling in an anti-clockwise direction to Neighbourhood 6 to the north, and ending with Neighbourhood 7 for the town centre. The town centre is located in the heart of Ang Mo Kio and is sandwiched by two town gardens set on natural hillocks.

This town offers a wide array of facilities for a ‘live, work, play, and learn’ environment. New residential projects are being introduced in the area, interweaving the old and the new to cater to the changing needs of residents, as well as to continuously rejuvenate the town. An example is Ang Mo Kio Court, a BTO development launched in 2016, the first in the town to have Three-Generation (3G) flats. These 3G flats are built with elderly-friendly facilities to support multi-generation families. In addition, Ang Mo Kio is being transformed into Singapore’s first walking and cycling town as part of the government’s plan for a car-lite Singapore.

How Many HDB Flats in Ang Mo Kio?

Ang Mo Kio is home to an estimated 145,700 HDB residents, and there are 50,025 flats under the HDB’s management (as of 31 March 2017).

Why Should You Live in Ang Mo Kio?

Administrative, legal, medical, religious, and social services catering towards the general public may also be found in the Ang Mo Kio area, with a major community hospital Ang Mo Kio Thye Hua Kwan Hospital that offers rehabilitative care. Recreational amenities include the Ang Mo Kio Park located on a hilly area surrounded by Avenues 4, 5, and 6 and alongside Mayflower estate, and also Bishan Park along Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1 which is frequented by people from both Ang Mo Kio and Bishan estates.

Several shopping malls are also found in Ang Mo Kio Central:

• AMK Hub
• Broadway Plaza
• Djitsun Mall

Accessibility and Transportation

The town’s road system utilises a hierarchy of road sizes by design: the major roads are referred to as “Avenues”, and the local-access roads referred to as “Streets”. The town’s avenues are arranged in a grid-like pattern, with the streets filtering traffic from the avenues to the individual blocks. The town itself is served by the Central Expressway, providing a rapid link from the town to the rest of the island via the expressway network.

The town is well served by a multi-modal public transport system. Two Mass Rapid Transit stations currently serve the town, both of which are on the North-South Line. They are:

• NS15 Yio Chu Kang
• NS16 Ang Mo Kio

The Ang Mo Kio Bus Interchange is directly linked to the Ang Mo Kio MRT station via an underground pedestrian walkway and provides feeder bus services from the MRT stations to each neighbourhood. Yio Chu Kang MRT Station is also served by bus services via the Yio Chu Kang Bus Terminal sited beside the station. Both the bus interchange and terminal offers trunk bus services to connect the town with the rest of the island, including a rapid connection to the city centre in the Central Area, as well as other financial and commercial districts in the central region of Singapore, including Shenton Way, Orchard Road, Marina Centre and Marine Parade.

Education

As of 2017, this area has a total of 8 MOE primary schools, 8 MOE secondary schools, Anderson Junior College, ITE College Central and Nanyang Polytechnic.

Several preschools can be found in Ang Mo Kio including the Al-Muttaqin Mosque Kindergarten, childcare centres operated by the National Trades Union Congress named My First Skool and also kindergartens managed under the PAP Community Foundation.

Two special schools may also be found, Chaoyang School (APSN) which caters for children with a mild intellectual disability aged 7-12 years old, and Pathlight School with two campuses in Ang Mo Kio with a focus on autism.

Any Future Plans for Ang Mo Kio?

There will be two upcoming stations on the Thomson-East Coast MRT Line will serve the new town alongside the existing stations on the North-South Line. They are:

• TE5 Lentor
• TE6 Mayflower

Lentor MRT station will be located at the junction between Ang Mo Kio Avenue 4 and Yio Chu Kang Road, and Mayflower MRT station will be located along Ang Mo Kio Avenue 4, within the Kebun Baru subzone. The two stations will be opened in 2020 under stage 2 and the line will parallel the North-South line towards Woodlands and the city centre as well as offering direct connections to the eastern parts of Singapore.

With Ang Mo Kio becoming a matured estate, several plots of residential land have been cleared up and sold to private developers for redevelopment.

Many private residential projects are being constructed on these sites. New residential projects such as Teck Ghee Parkview are springing up in the area, interweaving the old and the new to cater to the changing needs of
residents. Hence expect some exciting changes in the days to come as AMK further transforms into an established and self-sufficient resident estate.

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Source: HDB, Wikipedia