Block 45, 48 and 49 of Stirling Road have long been considered as Singapore’s first Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats when they were completed in October 1960, eight months after the statutory board was established.

First HDB Flats

But the three blocks, standing more than six decades near the junction of Queensway and Stirling Road, are in fact part of the Singapore Improvement Trust’s (SIT) Queenstown satellite town project that began in the fifties. HDB inherited the housing project and went on to finish the incomplete works left behind by SIT.

Hence, the title of the first flats fully planned and developed by HDB should belong to the ones at Mattar Road and Merpati Road (was called Jalan Merpati prior to the seventies). This small neighbourhood, part of the MacPherson Road Housing Estate, was made up of 18 HDB blocks (Block 1 to 18) of two different designs. At Mattar Road were three-storey one-room blocks that acted as emergency-type flats for some of the affected families of the Bukit Ho Swee Fire, whereas along Merpati Road were the taller 10-storey slab blocks.

Before the merger under Singapore Bus Services (SBS) in 1973, there were many large and small private bus operators in Singapore. Several bus services passed through Mattar and Merpati Roads in the sixties and seventies; they were the Singapore Traction Company (STC), Amalgamated Bus Company (ABC), Associated Bus Services (ABS), United Bus Company (UBC), Changi Bus Service, Bedok Bus Service and Paya Lebar Bus Service.

Some of the obsolete bus services that served Mattar and Merpati Roads were:

Incidents and Trivia 

In its early days, the Merpati Road flats frequently witnessed unfortunate fatal falls, due to either accidents or suicides, that dominated the news headlines. In 1977, a serious gas leakage incident at Block 1 of Mattar Road led to a family of four knocked out unconscious in their flat. A gas pipe in their kitchen was damaged but the tenants only wrapped it with a piece of cloth. They were only discovered when another family member returned home and called police.

In 1982, the residents of the Merpati Road flats spontaneously formed a team to clean and wash their lifts every night at 8:30pm. About 15 to 20 residents, including students, equipped themselves with brooms, mops and pails in the big wash-out. Merapti Road’s 11 blocks – each block had two lifts – were unglamorously known as the “Dirty Dozen” due to the filthy conditions of their lifts, which were often stained with litters and foul-smelling urine by inconsiderate people.

The HDB MacPherson area office gave its full support to the residents by supplying them the cleaning equipment and sending circulars to every household at Merpati Road. Urine detectors were later installed at the lifts, automatically stalling the lifts whenever a violation was detected. In 1989, a man was fined $800 for urinating inside Block 16’s lift.

Demolitions Over the Years

In 1979, the HDB decided to demolish four of the Mattar Road blocks. About 444 tenants shifted by 1980. The last 16 families were served eviction notices, and reluctantly moved out when the demolition started in June 1981. After the demolition, the small neighbourhood was left with 14 blocks (Block 3 to 5, 7 to 8, 10 to 18).

By the late eighties, another three blocks – the low-rise Block 5, 7 and 10 – were pulled down. This was followed by the demolition of Block 3, 4 and 11 in the early nineties. Block 8, 15, 16, 17 and 18 were gone by 1993, leaving only Block 12, 13 and 14 in the vicinity.

The three remaining blocks stood undisturbed for three more decades until 2023. They will be making way for redevelopment plans of the area around Downtown Line’s Mattar MRT Station, which opened in 2017. Beside the flats, the freehold terrace houses in the vicinity were also acquired. As many as 15 private properties were gazetted by the government in 2010.

With the impending demolition of the Merpati Road blocks, it spells the end of Singapore’s first HDB flats.

Published: 29 September 2023

Updated: 6 October 2023