Optimise Land Use by Building Up, Not Out

Taller landed homes on smaller plots could expand housing choice while preserving the character of low-rise neighbourhoods

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Singapore’s chronic land constraints require planners to use limited space more efficiently while accommodating demand for homes, workplaces, recreation and infrastructure.

The Urban Redevelopment Authority’s Draft Master Plan 2025, which sets out Singapore’s development direction for the next 10 to 15 years, reflects this challenge. Its priorities include creating more inclusive and accessible neighbourhoods, refreshing commercial and employment centres, and strengthening long-term resilience.

Housing supply will remain central to these efforts.

Between 2014 and 2024, the number of resident households rose by about 22 per cent, from 1.2 million to 1.46 million. Over the same period, average household size fell from 3.43 persons to 3.09 persons.

As households become more numerous and smaller, Singapore needs more homes even if population growth remains moderate. This makes it necessary to examine how efficiently different forms of housing use land.

One possible response would be to progressively rezone landed housing estates for higher-density developments such as condominiums. Replacing landed homes with apartment blocks could accommodate many more households on the same amount of land.

But eliminating landed housing would involve significant trade-offs.

A range of housing types contributes to the character of Singapore’s built environment. Landed homes also remain attractive to affluent households seeking more space, privacy and control over design and renovation.

The better approach may be to retain landed housing while allowing it to use land more efficiently.

A Middle Path Between Preservation and Replacement

Singapore need not choose between preserving landed estates exactly as they are and replacing them entirely with high-rise apartments.

One option would be to permit landed homes of up to five storeys in more areas, subject to an overall height limit of perhaps 22 metres. Current guidelines generally allow landed homes of two or three storeys, with overall height limits of about 12 metres and 15.5 metres respectively.

Higher building limits could be paired with smaller minimum plot requirements for terrace houses, semi-detached houses and detached homes. Some recalibration could also be considered for Good Class Bungalow Areas, although any changes there would need to respect their distinctive planning character.

This would allow existing landed districts to accommodate more homes without requiring entirely new landed estates to be created.

Why Singapore Needs More Landed Homes

The contrast between the growth of condominium housing and landed housing is already pronounced.

Between the fourth quarter of 2019 and the third quarter of 2025, the number of private non-landed homes, excluding executive condominiums, increased by about 16 per cent, from 300,159 units to 348,043 units.

Over the same period, the stock of private landed homes barely changed, rising just 0.3 per cent from 73,402 to 73,613 units.

This gap is unlikely to narrow under the current planning model. Government land sales regularly provide new sites for condominium development, but comparatively little land is released specifically for new landed housing.

As a result, the supply of apartments can continue expanding while the number of landed homes remains largely static.

Allowing more intensive development within existing landed housing zones could change this pattern. If homes were allowed to rise higher while minimum plot sizes were reduced, redevelopment and subdivision could gradually produce more landed housing units.

Consider a detached house in a two-storey landed housing area where the minimum plot size is 400 square metres, or about 4,306 square feet.

If the permissible plot size were reduced by about one-third while the allowable building height increased to five storeys, a new house could provide considerably more above-ground floor space despite occupying less land.

Such a model would make existing landed districts more productive while preserving the fundamental idea of landed living.

Expanding Access to Landed Living

Increasing the supply of landed homes would also give more high-income households an opportunity to enter this segment of the market.

For some condominium owners, buying a landed property represents a natural next step. The attraction is not simply prestige. Landed homes can offer more internal space, greater privacy, more control over design and renovation, and a different style of family living.

Yet the limited growth in landed housing supply means this form of housing is becoming increasingly scarce relative to Singapore’s expanding pool of affluent households.

Ownership of landed residential property is generally restricted to Singapore citizens. Foreigners seeking to purchase such properties must obtain approval, with applications assessed individually.

Factors considered can include whether the buyer has been a Singapore permanent resident for a sufficiently long period and whether the individual has made significant economic contributions to the country.

Expanding the landed housing stock would therefore primarily benefit Singaporeans while still allowing selected foreign residents with strong links to Singapore to participate under existing rules.

There is also an economic argument for offering a broader range of housing options to successful entrepreneurs, senior professionals, business leaders and executives.

Singapore competes internationally for highly skilled workers, investors and business founders. Attractive housing choices can form part of the wider ecosystem that encourages such individuals and their families to establish deeper roots here.

Their presence can contribute to business activity, employment, investment and tax revenue. This is particularly relevant as Singapore faces rising fiscal demands associated with an ageing population and growing expenditure on healthcare, social support and other public services.

How Taller Homes Could Strengthen Public Finances

More intensive development of landed housing land could also increase property tax collections.

Property tax is calculated by applying the relevant tax rate to a property’s annual value. Annual value is based broadly on the estimated gross yearly rent that the property could command if it were rented out, excluding furniture, furnishings and maintenance charges. It is determined with reference to market rents for comparable properties.

All else being equal, a larger house built on a particular plot would generally command a higher annual value than a substantially smaller one.

Allowing larger homes to be constructed vertically could therefore result in higher annual values and, correspondingly, higher property tax contributions.

Building Up Without Losing the Low-Rise Character

The main concern with taller and more compact landed development is whether it would undermine privacy, greenery and the low-density character of existing estates.

That risk can be managed through planning controls.

Current landed housing guidelines already regulate building coverage, setbacks, boundary clearances, roof projections, car porches, patios, terraces and other structural elements.

For example, a detached house outside a Good Class Bungalow Area generally faces a maximum site coverage requirement of 50 per cent, while the main building is typically required to be set back from common boundaries.

Many of these controls could continue to apply even if houses were allowed to become taller. Some requirements may need modest adjustments to make redevelopment commercially and architecturally practical, but higher buildings need not mean every plot is built to its absolute physical limits.

Height, spacing, greenery, overlooking and privacy can all be managed separately.

The objective should not be to transform landed estates into dense urban canyons. It should be to allow more efficient use of each plot while retaining sufficient separation between homes and preserving the qualities that make landed neighbourhoods attractive.

Singapore has repeatedly shown that greater building intensity does not necessarily lead to a poorer living environment. Well-designed developments can accommodate significantly more floor space while maintaining greenery, privacy, ventilation and attractive streetscapes.

The same principle can apply to landed housing. With thoughtful design standards, existing estates could accommodate taller houses and a larger number of homes without losing their essential low-rise residential character.

Let Landed Housing Evolve With Singapore

Landed properties already house only a relatively small share of Singapore households.

Between 2014 and 2024, the proportion of resident households living in landed homes declined from 5.8 per cent to 4.7 per cent.

If the supply of landed housing remains almost fixed while the overall number of households continues to increase, that share is likely to shrink further.

But preserving landed housing does not require freezing its present physical form.

Singapore has continuously adapted its housing models as land values, demographics and social needs have changed. Landed housing should be capable of evolving as well.

Allowing houses to rise to perhaps five storeys, while carefully reducing minimum plot sizes and maintaining appropriate planning safeguards, could significantly improve the productivity of land already reserved for this purpose.

Such a policy would not solve Singapore’s housing constraints on its own, nor would it turn landed housing into a mass-market product.

It could, however, expand the stock of landed homes, make better use of scarce land and allow more households to pursue a form of housing that is otherwise becoming progressively rarer.

In a land-scarce city, the choice need not be between preserving landed estates unchanged and replacing them with high-rise apartments.

There is a middle path: retain landed housing, but allow it to become taller, more compact and more efficient.