The end of the river
“Hougang” is the Mandarin form of Au Kang, “the end of the river”. The land was forest and pig farms, largely Teochew; the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary opened on Upper Serangoon Road in 1853, and its present building of 1901 was gazetted a National Monument in 2005.
In 1979 HDB announced a 460-hectare new town for 120,000 people, whose five-room maisonettes were designed to blend in with the private Charlton Park estate next door. Hougang Mall (1997) was NTUC’s first mall, and Hougang and Kovan MRT stations opened in 2003. By land area it is the largest HDB new town.
What the planning area covers
Its subzones are Hougang Central, East and West, Kangkar, Kovan, Lorong Ah Soo, Lorong Halus, Tai Seng, Trafalgar and Defu Industrial Park. Upper Paya Lebar is in Serangoon.
New launches and land sales
- Jansen House — Macly Group, 21 units on a 999-year lease at 25 Jansen Road, previewed in April 2024.
- Hougang Central site — a mixed commercial and residential development of about 830 homes over the bus interchange, awarded by HDB on 14 January 2026 to Horizon Residential and Horizon Commercial Trustee, 99-year lease.
Getting around
Hougang and Kovan on the North East Line and Tai Seng on the Circle Line sit inside the boundary. Defu and a Hougang interchange are on the Cross Island Line’s first phase, which LTA expects by 2030.
Schools with pages here include Xinghua Primary, Holy Innocents’ Primary, Montfort Junior and CHIJ Our Lady of the Nativity.
Who manages the buildings here
Ocean IFM (17), Earnest Management Services (7) manage the most developments inside the boundary. About a fifth 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 19 page.
Sources: URA Master Plan 2019 planning area and subzone boundaries (data.gov.sg); NLB Infopedia (Hougang); EdgeProp (Jansen House); HDB (Hougang Central award); LTA (Cross Island Line). Buildings are listed when their coordinate falls inside URA’s boundary for the planning area; prices are left out because they change.
