Quarries, a shrine and a factory
Bukit is Malay for hill and batok for cough, but NLB lists several stories for the name — cold air, coconuts, stone, quarry blasts that made the hills “cough” — and says they are difficult to verify. Before housing the area was farmland, villages, forest reserve and granite quarries, the best known being Poh Hin Granite Quarry. Bukit Batok Town Park, 36 hectares, is known as “Little Guilin”.
The British surrendered to the Japanese at the Ford Factory on Upper Bukit Timah Road on 15 February 1942. That year about 500 Australian prisoners-of-war built the Syonan Chureito shrine on Bukit Batok Hill; it was demolished in 1945, and its steps and two pillars remain. The transmission tower on the hill carried Singapore’s first television broadcast on 15 February 1963. Bukit Batok New Town was planned under HDB’s 1981–1985 programme: four neighbourhoods and 26,000 flats.
What the planning area covers
Its nine subzones are Brickworks, Bukit Batok Central, Bukit Batok East, Bukit Batok South, Bukit Batok West, Gombak, Guilin, Hillview and Hong Kah North — so Bukit Gombak and Hillview are part of Bukit Batok, not separate areas. The list includes industrial strata developments as well as homes.
New launches
- Altura — Qingjian Realty and Santarli Realty, a 360-unit executive condominium on Bukit Batok West Avenue 8, launched in August 2023.
- Hillhaven — Far East Organization and Sekisui House, 341 units on Hillview Rise, launched in January 2024.
- Lumina Grand — City Developments Limited, a 512-unit executive condominium at Bukit Batok West Avenues 5 and 8, launched in January 2024; the site was awarded by HDB on 28 September 2022 to CDL Zenith Pte. Ltd.
- The Arden — CNQC Realty (Phoenix), 105 units on Phoenix Road, on a 99-year lease from 14 July 2023.
No site inside the boundary has been sold since 2023.
Getting around
Bukit Batok and Bukit Gombak are on the North–South Line and Hume on the Downtown Line. The Jurong Region Line, which LTA says will open in stages from around 2028, has a station planned on Bukit Batok West Avenue 8.
Schools with pages here include Princess Elizabeth Primary, Keming Primary, Dazhong Primary and Lianhua Primary.
Who manages the buildings here
Savills Property Management (7), Ocean IFM (5) manage the most developments inside the boundary. About a quarter of the developments here have no managing agent on record — many are small blocks run by their own council. Each building page lists its own office contact.
What to have ready
The management office will ask for the MCST number and your unit. Public carparks with live lot counts are on the carparks page; see also the District 23 page.
Sources: URA Master Plan 2019 planning area and subzone boundaries (data.gov.sg); NLB Infopedia (Bukit Batok); EdgeProp (Altura); EdgeProp (Hillhaven); EdgeProp (Lumina Grand); HDB (Bukit Batok West Avenue 5 award); Qingjian Realty (The Arden); LTA (Jurong Region Line). Buildings are listed when their coordinate falls inside URA’s boundary for the planning area; prices are left out because they change.
