S'pore & Johor regent to swap land plots at Holland Road

The Singapore government and the Regent of Johor has agreed to swap plots of land around the junction of Holland Road and Tyersall Avenue, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) announced in a joint statement.

The royal family of Johor currently owns, for generations now, 21.1ha of land at Holland Road, near Singapore Botanic Gardens.

Johor's regent Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim has plans to develop his land.

This prompted a land swap deal with the Singapore government to move the Johor regent's planned developments further away from the Botanic Gardens.

The exchange is expected to be completed later in 2025, according to the Straits Times.

The regent's planned development at the new site will be subject to due process

The swap

The plots of land to be swapped are marked A and C in the image below.

The Johor regent, who is also the Crown Prince of Johor, will transfer to the Singapore government Plot C, which spans 13ha.

In return, Singapore will give him Plot A, which occupies 8.5ha and is further from the Botanic Gardens.

The remaining 8.1ha in Plot B will continue to be owned by the regent.

Plots A and C are of comparable value, according to URA and SLA.

The land that the Johor regent currently owns in Singapore includes the Istana Woodneuk and Istana Tyserall, abandoned historical palaces where the Sultan of Johor used to reside in the 19th century.

After the exchange, the Johor regent may develop Plots A and B, which the two authorities said are suitable for low-rise and low-density residential uses.

Any applications for development will be assessed by URA and the relevant agencies, who will ensure that the proposed development is "sensitive to the surrounding site context".

According to the statement, Plot C under Singapore will remain undeveloped for now, but the government is "keeping open our future plans for the area".

Past talks of development

In 2021, Bloomberg reported that the Johor regent's representatives had been in talks with Singapore to transform some of his land into a "multi-billion dollar luxury housing development".

At that time, the executive director of research at Savills Singapore estimated that the plot of land could be worth between S$2.66 billion and S$4.5 billion.

Singapore had previously bought portions of land from the Johor regent in 1990 and 2009, to develop the Tyersall and Gallop extensions of the Botanic Gardens.

Top image from URA & SLA, and the Regent of Johor's Facebook