From river mills to waterfront homes
The name comes from the Orang Kallang, boat-dwellers who made up about half of Singapore’s roughly 1,000 residents in 1819; an alternative reading is kelang, a mill. The 1836 map shows mangrove and swamp, and by the late 19th century the river was lined with sawmills, rice and oil mills and abattoirs. Kallang Airport opened on reclaimed land in 1937 and served until 1955; the gasworks ran from 1861 to 1998; the National Stadium stood from 1973 to 2007.
After the April 1958 Kampong Koo Chye fire, the Singapore Improvement Trust began terrace houses that HDB finished in 1960, and in 1964 the government acquired the Bendemeer House estate for the Kallang Basin housing and industrial project. Tanjong Rhu’s shipyards had moved to Jurong by the 1980s, leaving what NLB calls Singapore’s first waterfront residential enclave.
What the planning area covers
Its subzones are Bendemeer, Boon Keng, Crawford, Geylang Bahru, Kallang Bahru, Kampong Bugis, Kampong Java, Lavender and Tanjong Rhu — which puts Mustafa Centre inside Kallang, but Farrer Park and Jalan Besar stations in the neighbouring Rochor area.
New launches and land sales
- Piccadilly Grand — CDL and MCL Land, 407 units on Northumberland Road, previewed from April 2022.
- Lavender Residence — FLJ Property, 17 freehold units at 288 Lavender Street, on sale from June 2023.
- The Arcady at Boon Keng — 172 freehold units, launched in January 2024.
- Arina East Residences — ZACD with partners, 107 freehold units on Tanjong Rhu Road, launched in April 2025.
- Dorset Road site — awarded by URA on 16 October 2025 to United Venture Development (2022), 99-year lease.
- Tanjong Rhu Road site — awarded by URA on 10 February 2026 to CDL Constellation and Bedrock Ventures, 99-year lease.
- Kallang Close site — awarded by URA on 10 April 2026 to Frasers Property Phoenix and MJR Investment, 99-year lease.
- Tanjong Rhu Close — on the government’s land sales list for the second half of 2026 (about 505 homes), not yet in tender.
Getting around
Eight stations sit inside the boundary: Kallang and Lavender on the East–West Line; Boon Keng and Little India on the North East Line; Bendemeer and Geylang Bahru on the Downtown Line; Stadium on the Circle Line; and Tanjong Rhu on the Thomson–East Coast Line.
Schools with pages here include Bendemeer Primary, Farrer Park Primary and Hong Wen School.
Who manages the buildings here
Chambers Property Management Services (13), Smart Property Management (7) manage the most developments inside the boundary. More than a third 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 8 and District 12 pages.
Sources: URA Master Plan 2019 planning area and subzone boundaries (data.gov.sg); NLB Infopedia (Kallang); NLB Infopedia (Bendemeer); NLB Infopedia (Tanjong Rhu); BiblioAsia (Geylang and its lorongs); CDL (Piccadilly Grand); EdgeProp (Lavender Residence); EdgeProp (The Arcady at Boon Keng); EdgeProp (Arina East Residences); URA (Dorset Road award); URA (Tanjong Rhu Road award); URA (Kallang Close award); URA (2H2026 GLS Confirmed List). Buildings are listed when their coordinate falls inside URA’s boundary for the planning area; prices are left out because they change.
