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BY StackedPublished 16 Jul 20230 comments | 11min read
BY Stacked
A while back, a reader asked for a review of the Goodlink Park landed estate, near Chong Pang Hawker Centre. I’m sorry it took me so long to get around to it, but this brings me to the first point about the estate: it is rather far out! We’ve been covering quite a few centrally located and Eastside enclaves so I decided it was time for a change, and Chong Pang came to mind, so join me for today’s tour!
Goodlink Park is located in one of, if not Singapore’s most infamous area, Yishun. (If you’re not familiar with the news about Yishun, you can click here to find out more.) Personally, I didn’t realise Yishun was any different from any other part of Singapore till I started looking at properties and a friend mentioned it so, personally, the location wouldn’t stop me if I found a property that was suitable for me here. However, my friend feels pretty strongly about never moving to Yishun so I guess there is a segment of buyers that are deterred by Yishun’s reputation. (Which Team are you on: Team Yishun or Team No Way?)
Note: if you clicked on this article just for the freehold corner terrace– freehold corner terraces under $4 million are a rare breed nowadays – here’s the link.
Entrance to Goodlink Park estate: the main road is lined by some eateries and industrial businesses, so the residential properties are buffered from the road noise. There are limited public car park lots outside the restaurants and businesses.A second row of shophouses across the road. Maybe it’s because it was early in the morning, so there were empty lots available. (I ended up driving over to park here instead. If you’re wondering, it’s 60 cents per half-hour here.)However, despite the early hours, this eatery was very busy! There are more houses along Jalan Mata Ayer, which is the street next to Goodlink Park. (I’ll cover Jalan Mata Ayer after I finish visiting Goodlink Park.) (Further down Sembawang Road, there are more eateries such as a Mcdonald’s drive-in, a Chinese pastries retail shop, and a Korean restaurant.)Almost everything was closed, other than the eatery I showed above, but I imagine the lights here are very pretty when lit at night!
In fact, the thing that struck me about Goodlink Park is that it is one of the friendliest landed enclaves, if not the friendliest, that I’ve visited on these tours!
Bear with me as I explain why. If you want to take my word for it and don’t want to read my long-winded story about how nice the people are, you can skip to 4 paragraphs down.
Case for Friendly Neighbourhood #1
So, many of the houses at Goodlink Park are terrace houses and if you’ve been following this series (or the news about landed houses in Singapore), you’ll have heard me/other people moan about how difficult it can be to find parking in landed estates, especially those with more terrace units (as they usually only have space to park one car within the property.) If you’ve not caught up on all the disputes about parking, I’ve linked to some articles here and here.
Goodlink Park is a teeny estate. It pretty much has 3 streets arranged in the shape of an F. This is looking down the first street that is parallel to the main road. As you can see, there are cars parked on both sides of the road and no empty spaces (that are not entrances to the houses.) To be fair, I must say this road is actually super wide – I could drive down the road pretty comfortably despite the parked vehicles on both sides.
As I drove into Goodlink Park, it was the typical terrace house landed scenario: no street parking spaces as dustbins were used to reserve any empty lots. I was resigned to driving over to Chong Pang HDB and walking back when I chanced upon a space at the end of the cul-de-sac. The cul-de-sac ended next to the estate’s playground and was so wide that I only had to do a 2-point turn to reverse out of the street! As such, although it stopped right outside a corner terrace, there was enough space for me to park there.
After I parked the car, the house owner came out and very, very politely asked me to move slightly to the left: he explained that although there was enough space for him to exit his house, because of the weird configuration of the street, it would be difficult for him to drive back in! I, of course, immediately offered to park elsewhere but he insisted that it would be OK. Wasn’t that kind of him? A refreshing change from house owners who get angry when someone parks outside their house.
This is the road leading in from the main road.
Something to highlight is that the first row of houses is pretty much single-loading. (It does face the commercial properties which line the main road, but there’s some space separating the two.)The space between the first row of houses and the commercial properties. Also, because most of them are industrial businesses, the operation hours should not be too disruptive (as compared to if they were all eateries.)
Case for Friendly Neighbourhood #2
After the tour, since I’d already driven all the way across Singapore I decided to head over to Chong Park Hawker Center for breakfast. At one of the turnings, the traffic light was blocked so I didn’t see that it had turned green. The car behind was SO patient and did not horn at all! This is in contrast to other residential enclaves (looking at you, Mount Sinai) where I stopped at a FOUR WAY JUNCTION (with no traffic lights) to check for on-coming traffic and before I’d even paused for 2 seconds, got blasted by the car behind!
Chong Pang Hawker Centre. (I couldn’t take a photo inside as it was so packed, there was no way I could not take a direct photo of someone’s face.) According to Google, it’s about 11 minutes walk away but I confess I ended up driving over!
Note: Chong Park Hawker Center is the most crowded hawker centre I’ve ever seen!!! It was really difficult to walk through it. The prices here are super reasonable though as portion sizes are generous (At some places, I feel like I need to order 2 to be full but, at Chong Park, one is more than enough. In addition, the Prawn Mee Hawker didn’t even charge me for taking away the food! (I forgot to take down the name of the stall but it’s the one that shares the stall with An Chin Popiah. Prawn noodles and fishball noodles in the am and popiah and Hokkien mee in the pm.)
Budget 2024 was announced today, with an emphasis on “enhancing education and training”, and on financial aid to target groups.…
Ryan J ·
16 Feb 2024 ·
2 comments
End of public service announcement!
Of course, this is circumstantial evidence based on a single data point so needs further evidence to be confirmed but, all in all, Goodlink Park left me with very good “kampung” vibes and struck me as a great community to be part of.
OK now that I’m done extolling the niceness of Chong Pang’s residents, let’s get on with the actual walkabout!
I’ll start where I parked: at the Goodlink Park Playground. From here, I can see that Goodlink Park is one/two levels elevated above the neighbouring landed estate. In addition, although the playground was small, it had a COVERED BADMINTON COURT!! This is a privilege reserved for very, very few landed enclaves in Singapore. I’ve only seen similar courts (be it badminton or a general ball court) at Bukit Timah, Carlisle Road and Jurong Park, if memory serves. There were also a lot of plastic chairs at the side of the badminton court, which facilitates the organization of community gatherings.
Entrance to the playground. I didn’t see any kids using the playground during the 2-3 hours I was at the estate.Do other playgrounds have such signs? As mentioned, not the largest of playgrounds but certainly beautifully landscaped and very well-equipped with a court!The court and the chairs I mentioned. The two houses next to the court may find it a bit too close for comfort if the court is in (noisy) use.Turning around and looking across to the first row of houses at Goodlink Park.Turning to the left and looking at the row of houses that belong to the neighbouring estate. As you can see, these houses are on lower ground.There is also some outdoor equipment for adults behind the court.Details of the free event I mentioned above.I walked across the playground, past the outdoor equipment for adults, to the next row of houses.Here, we find a row of (very sizeable) semi-Ds facing a row of terrace houses.Looking down the 2nd street of Goodlink Park, terraces on the left and semi-Ds on the right.Vintage-style houses here. (Note how you can park two cars here if you park in a row.)A few houses have been rebuilt, but not many.I think this photo does a good job of conveying how broad the small streets are.There is actually a condo behind the houses here (Northwoods, freehold) but the trees do a great job of blocking the development and making this area look more tranquil.One of the few modernised properties.I think this is the only construction project I saw in Goodlink Park. I like how it has a side gate.Walking out of Goodlink Park for Jalan Mata Ayer now.Some houses I passed along the way.Very different styles here! Love this vintage car.There’s a tiny piece of state land to the right as we walk out of Goodlink Park. (So small I wonder what they can do here.)Commercial units on the left. I think you can walk all the way over to Jalan Mata Ayer if you follow this alley but I’ll head out to the main road.Entrance of Jalan Mata Ayer.Map of the area to help you orientate yourself. If driving, you’ll pass Jalan Mata Ayer before Goodlink Park. Jalan Mata Ayer is shaped like a “7” vs Goodlink Park’s “F” shape.Walking in to Jalan Mata Ayer. That’s Euphony Gardens on the left, one of two condos amongst the residential houses. It’s leasehold and the other condo, Northwoods, is freehold FYI. To enter both condos, you have to drive into Jalan Mata Ayer, so it’s good that the roads here are nice and broad and don’t allow street-side parking. (Note that Goodlink Park is slightly more private in the sense that you can’t drive into the two condos from Goodlink Park. However, the roads feel less congested at Jalan Mata Ayer due to the lack of parked cars on the road.)The houses across the road from Euphony Gardens.At the end of the road, the houses adjoin the Northwoods condo. (That’s the condo behind the trees that we saw earlier when we were at Goodlink Park.)Northwoods condo.Across the condo are more houses and a Montessori.Turning into the road here. Over on this street, cars are allowed to park on the street, so I guess visitors to the house we saw earlier can park here (if there is space available – spot the dustbins!)Some very big properties here (That’s Euphony Gardens behind the houses.)And another childcare centre… I wonder if the area gets noisy when both centres are in session…Some very interesting architecture.More massive semi-Ds. And a beautiful “cottage” in what I believe to be original condition.Next to the cottage is a row of newly developed semi-D houses! I was intrigued by them so I googled but alas they’re going for $6.98 million. (TOP is slightly confusing, some units list 2022, others 2024, and another 2025!)A better look for those with the $$$.The row of houses ends next to a large open space.This is the row of houses across the street – as you can see it’s nice and open there too. If you’re wondering why there’s so much green space, it’s Special Use land.Anything to note is that there is a large plot of empty residential land (subject to detailed planning) in the area – it’s the orange you see at the bottom of the Masterplan above. (The plot is huge – many times larger than these two landed enclaves.)
We’ve seen most of the properties here, so time to walk back to the main road.
This is the junction of Jalan Mata Ayer and the main road (Sembawang Road.)Sembawang Road is undergoing LOTS of construction. There were actually 3 traffic wardens here to direct the flow of traffic! (They’re building the North-South Corridor nearby too.)
Now that we’ve seen the area, how did you find Goodlink Park? Let me know in the comments. If you think that there are other estates better worth a feature, do let me know too!
Note: I’d also like to point out how the Chingay event (in March) was free for residents. This is not always the case as many estates charge for entry to such neighbourhood events.
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