The Chencharu masterplan, explained

Chencharu is one of the largest new housing areas HDB has planned in the north of Singapore: roughly 10,000 homes on 70 hectares by 2040. If you are considering a home here, it helps to understand what is being built around it, because most of the estate does not exist yet.

What Chencharu is

Chencharu sits within Yishun town, bordered by Yishun Avenue 1, Yishun Avenue 2 and Sembawang Road. HDB unveiled the masterplan on 5 March 2024. The plan sets out around 10,000 new homes by 2040, of which at least 80% will be public housing and the remainder private.

The stated vision is "A Vibrant Village, Connecting Communities and Heritage". That heritage framing is not decoration: the area was farmland, and the design draws on Yishun's agricultural past, including pineapple and mackerel motifs, alongside a colonial-era bungalow at 50 Bah Soon Pah Road.

Where the name Chencharu comes from

The estate takes its name from Lorong Chencharu, a small road off Sembawang Road. As The Straits Times has reported, it is one of the few roads left from Bah Soon Pah, the rural village that covered this land until the area was urbanised from the late 1970s. Its neighbouring lanes disappeared in the 1980s.

The word itself is an old Malay name for the horse mackerel, a small fish recorded under that name in R.J. Wilkinson's Malay-English dictionary and more commonly called selar today. It is why the estate's design carries fish motifs.

Bah Soon Pah, in turn, is linked to Lim Nee Soon, the pioneer known as the pineapple and rubber king, whose name also gives Yishun its name. The bungalow at 50 Bah Soon Pah Road that will sit in the new park was built in 1912 for the manager of his company's rubber estate.

What is being built

A new park with a plantation house on it

A colonial-era plantation house will sit atop a new park at the heart of the estate — an unusual feature for a new HDB precinct, where heritage buildings are more often lost than kept. An east-west community avenue is planned to link the park directly to Khatib MRT, forming a continuous pedestrian green route.

An integrated development

Rather than scattering amenities, the plan concentrates them: a hawker centre, a bus interchange, shops and homes in a single integrated development. This is the site at Chencharu Close, the first private housing plot sold in the estate.

Chencharu Link, including a bus-only stretch

A new road, Chencharu Link, will run north to south through the centre of the estate. A roughly 400-metre section is designated bus-only. That is a deliberate choice to keep through-traffic out of the residential core while giving buses a clear run to the interchange.

The BTO projects

Public housing came first. The opening BTO launched in June 2024 with about 1,270 units spanning two-room flexi, three-, four- and five-room flats. Four projects have now been launched within the precinct:

• Chencharu Hills, June 2024
• Chencharu Green, February 2025
• Chencharu Vines, February 2025
• Chencharu Grove, October 2025

For a private buyer this matters in two directions. Thousands of new households arrive with you, which supports shops, schools and transport. It also means construction will be a fact of life in the estate for several years.

Where the private housing fits

With at least 80% of Chencharu set aside for public housing, private supply here is structurally limited. The first private site, at Chencharu Close, was awarded on 26 September 2025 to a consortium of Gamuda (Singapore), Evia MCS and H108 — the latter including Ho Lee Group — for S$1.012 billion, or S$980 per square foot per plot ratio. It is planned for up to 875 homes above roughly 13,000 sq m of commercial space, including the bus interchange and hawker centre.

Whether more private plots follow, and on what timeline, has not been announced.

Getting around

Khatib MRT on the North-South Line is the estate's station, and the Chencharu Close site sits about 500m from it. The North-South Corridor, which completes in phases from 2027, adds a faster road route toward the city.

What is not yet known

Plenty. Completion dates for individual parcels, the final layout of the park, exact school placements, and the unit mix and pricing for the private site have not been released. We publish figures here as they are confirmed, and leave them out until then.

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