Today, we’re touring Spring Park Estate and its neighbours in East Singapore – namely, the houses in between Evergreen Avenue, Bedok South Road, Sennett Road and Upper East Coast Road. (Despite the similar name, the area is not to be confused with Sennett Estate which is a collection of landed houses near MacPherson Garden Estate! This landed enclave is in Bedok, and not too far away from Elliot Avenue, which I toured a while back.)
Spring Park Estate was built in 1960 and the area consists of terrace, semi-D and detached houses, most of which are designated as 3-storey mixed landed.
As you can see from the masterplan above, the estate is next to Temasek Junior College and the Singapore Hokkien Hua Kuan Cultural Academy. (The area caters to families with children as Victoria JC and Victoria School are also close by – under 5 km from most of the houses.) For those with young kids, Bedok Green Primary and Temasek Primary are also within 1 km of some of the houses in the area. Not to mention the fact that there are 3 childcare centres and 3 kindergartens in the vicinity!
Located along the main road, Rainbow Cove Pre-School is one of the childcare centres near by. (There are residential properties next door.)
On that note, let’s start today’s walkabout along Upper East Coast Road!
Walking out of Sennett Road onto Upper East Coast Road, the Hokkien Huay Kuan, which occupies quite a large area, is on my right.This is what it looks like, if you’re curious! Walking down Upper East Coast Road – you can see this is quite a busy area, so there’s a constant roar of traffic. To be honest, I wouldn’t really want to live along the main road! Across the road are some low-rise condos.This is one of several bus stops near the estate (I think there are at least 5 bus stops within 500m) and a fair number of buses ply this road, as you can see from the signage. The houses by the main road benefit from a longer driveway (sets the house back from the road noise, although I have noticed that many grow lush foliage along the fence – perhaps as a noise buffer or privacy screen.) The long driveway also makes it easier to reverse in and out of the property.See what I mean about the driveways?Walking a little further down brings us to Jalan Remis (road on the right of the photo) and Jalan Kupang, 2 cul-de-sacs.A few steps down is this large walkway that leads back into the landed estate.And then we reach Evergreen Avenue. Evergreen Avenue is linked to Evergreen Gardens by Primrose Avenue, so this small section of houses has 2 exits and entrances from Upper East Coast Road. (It’s sort of like a cul-de-sac in that there’s no through road to Sennett Road or Sennett Avenue. To get to the other houses in the estate, you’ll need to head out via the main Upper East Coast Road.)
Next to Evergreen Avenue is an Esso petrol station and Casa Fina condo, a full-facility 99-year condo with slightly over 200 units. (The top floor units are maisonettes, for those who like split-level living.)
This is what you see at the other end of Evergreen Avenue. Temasek JC is straight ahead with the taller Bedok South HDB blocks (and market/hawker centre) behind it.
On the left is a large piece of land used for utilities. From what I can tell, it appears to be a water utility facility and not an electrical one (mentioning this as some people have reservations about living close to electrical power stations/lines due to radiation concerns.)
The utility facility. There have been quite a few sales in the area over the last year, and I spotted a number of construction projects.If my sense of direction (and Google) is correct, turn to your left and the blocks you see ahead are the Casa Fino condo I mentioned earlier. The utility is on the right and the left is a small outdoor gym and sports court, which was in use when I visited.Close-up of the exercise area and gym. Turn to the other direction and you see a pedestrian path that links the Evergreen Avenue cul-de-sac to the other side of the landed estate (the Sennett Avenue bit.) Following the path, this is what we see… …before reaching the other part of the landed estate. There is a huge playground here (the slightly elevated section right ahead.)Sennett Avenue Playground – it was quiet when I did my walkabout (quieter than the Casa Fino sports courts.) I like how the playground is on slightly higher ground. The landscaping is nice too! It definitely made the estate feel more “posh.”
The playground is sizeable enough that it even has an entire blog article dedicated to it here (albeit a short piece.)
Random: I guess the area is quite posh, as apparently you will have some billionaire neighbours if you move here. (According to the ST, it’s the Hotel81 founder, if you’re curious but not curious enough to click through the link.)
View of the playground equipment – you can see they’re nicely spaced out, although the row of houses at the back may find them too close for comfort (playground noise travels.) To the right is some empty green space, which contributes to the spacious feeling of the area.More playground equipment.Photo to show you how far the houses (on the left) are from the playground (on the right – far enough that we can’t see them in this photo.)These are the roads around the playground. As you can see, the roads here are wide and spacious. I didn’t observe any parking issues when I visited, even in the Evergreen Avenue cul-de-sac! (Cul-de-sacs are generally more parking-challenged compared to other landed areas.)
Observe how there are no rubbish bins used to reserve parking space here!Community Halloween event held at the playground (with a $2 admission fee.)Still walking around the playground – you can see it spans a large space, though not quite as large as that of the playground at Tai King Gardens.
We’ve been looking mainly at the area, so let’s take a closer look at the houses around here now.
A row of terrace houses – as you can see from the property on the left, the plots here are quite large, even for terraces, and there’s room for plot ratio maximisation (compare the height of the 2nd and 3rd houses.) Streets with terrace houses are often the most squeezy when it comes to parking, but the situation looks OK here, as shown in the above photo.Some roads even have space for a 3rd car to navigate through 2 rows of parked cars (on both sides of the road!)A couple of parts of the estate are on uneven land, so the land is split i.e. there are steps in the middle of the plot (see above.)Some houses here are pretty impressive! I think the square footage of this driveway alone is bigger than some terrace houses.Very interesting vintage architecture. First time I’m seeing a car porch extend all the way to the backyard! The house must be pretty breezy (also solves any potential parking issues.)Love this mural. Brings some personality to the area!As previously mentioned, this area has slopes, so some houses are located on elevated land.This brings us to the million dollar shot for the estate: the view that the terrace houses along Sennett Terrace (shown in the previous photo) enjoy (if not blocked by the trees that is!)
Personally, I would love to live somewhere like this (although I do wonder if traffic noise is an issue, since the road below is quite a major one.)
There’s also a path that leads down for very convenient access to Bedok South Market and Food Centre!
In terms of amenities, Siglap Centre, Parkway Parade and i12 Katong are a short car ride away and you can also drive to the CBD, Jewel Changi and Changi Business Park in 15-20 minutes, so the estate is actually pretty well-connected.
Photo of how busy the roads below are.
We’ve now come to the end of today’s walkabout. I’ll share a couple more pictures of the walk back down to Upper East Coast Road so that you guys can see more of the estate. (Don’t worry, it’s nowhere as steep as the one here!)
See, it’s not a short walk down, but thankfully a very manageable one.In the distance (not part of this estate), we can spot a very interesting building with a pavilion built in the traditional Chinese style.Super broad pavements here – broad enough to park a car!!See what I mean about sloping land? This brings us back to where we started our tour: Upper East Coast Road.
Now that we’ve seen the area, how did you find it? I, for one, would love to live on Sennett Terrace. I can just imagine how cool and windy it must be, perched high up above everyone else!
TJ
