Forest City Gelang Patah: Green City For Better Life

Modern life has brought with it countless problems. Traffic jams, environmental pollution and negative climate change.

Our towns and cities have turned into prisons, we live there simply because we have to.

How many times have you gotten sick of the loud noise and smoke from vehicles and longed for a peaceful quiet place where you can be able to relax?

Well, anybody living in a modern city can relate to it.

Are you tired of living in a congested poorly planned city?

Do you envision a place where technology coexists harmoniously with nature?

Are you looking for a tranquil place where you can work and live far from the hassle of urban life?

If yes, then you might be interested in checking out Forest City, the hot development project in Johor Bahru!

In this article, we will talk about:

Table of Contents
1. How To Go To Forest City Johor Bahru From Singapore
2. Food & Restaurant In Forest City Johor
3. Forest City Hotel Johor Bahru (JB)
4. Forest City Golf Club
5. Forest City Schools
6. Forest City: The Ideas and People Behind It
7. What is So Unique About Forest City?

1. How To Go To Forest City Johor Bahru From Singapore

The fastest, cheapest and most convenient way to get to and from the Forest City is via Tuas Second Link Bridge, but which transportation should you choose from?

Also read: How To Go To Gelang Patah From Singapore

As everyone knows, the public transport option will be more complicated as compared to hiring a private car service. Why not reduce your stress on researching of busses available by just hiring a private car service?

Why You Should Choose SGMYTAXI Private Car From Singapore To Forest City

• SGMYTAXI provides reliable and convenient private car services
• The most popular taxi services in Singapore & Johor Bahru regions
• Direct transfer from any chosen point of Singapore to/from Forest City
• Just stay in the car and the driver will handle the immigration process for you
• Always get good service reviews from customer, see their happy customers feedback here!
• Vehicles are kept in good maintenance
• Reasonable fares & professional services
• Spacious legroom, cosy and comfortable seat

The SGMYTAXI vehicles are kept in good maintenance to make your ride to the most beautiful place you have ever seen as smooth and comfortable as it can be.

SGMYTAXI MPV fleets
i.) Toyota Innova
ii.) Toyota Alphard
iii.) Hyundai Starex

Recommended For

• Businessmen who are interested in Forest City project investment
• Families travel with elderly or kids
• Travel groups within 5-10 pax
• Travel groups in a tight schedule

How To Book Your Ride

Contact SGMYTAXI team for more information or click here for online booking.

2. Food & Restaurant in Forest City Johor

1. SiChuan Restaurant(中国餐厅四川菜馆)

2. Tee-Off Restaurant

3. DZH Forest City(大中华饮食集团)

4. Drop Top Forest City

5. Old Shanghai Dumpling & A Cup Of Tea(老上海馄饨&茶壹杯)

6. PappaRich Forest City(金爸爸餐饮)

7. Marrybrown Forest City

8. Aliz Bistro(阿里滋清真餐馆)

9. ShaXian Snacks(沙县小吃)

10. Chong Qing Noodle(重庆小面)

3. Forest City Hotel Johor Bahru (JB)

1. Forest City Phoenix International Marina Hotel

Working in Singapore is stressful, are you looking for a short vacation that can get leisure, natural, memorable, convenient or combination of everything? Forest City at Johor Bahru is your best choice!

Staying above the sea and enjoy the sea view from your room at Forest City Phoenix Hotel! There is a lot of recreations and entertainments you can enjoy the trip.

Price Starting From:
RM432 @ SGD$144

Hotel Highlight:

• Complimentary WIFI
• Flat-screen TV
• Kettle
• Coffee/Tea
• Minibar
• Refrigerator
• The bathroom is ready with hygiene products
• Towel and slippers are provided
• Hairdryer
• Balcony
• Swimming pool
• Outdoor pool
• Garden

Good To Know:

• The hotel is just next to the beach, you can enjoy vitamin-sea just in front of your hotel!
• The staffs will be ready at the 24-hours front desk to serve you.
• Conference room and private meeting room are available to fulfil your needs in any kind of events.
• Breakfast buffet is included within your staying date, lunch buffet and dinner buffet sets are available to purchase.
• One of the best things to do near Legoland Malaysia, it is just 11km away!
• Free parking is provided for guests.

4. Forest City Golf Club

1. Forest City Phoenix International Golf Hotel

Forest City Legacy Golf Course is a human-made 18-hole international golf course surrounded by mangrove trees, you can see the beauty of nature water river and white sands from every holes destination inside the golf course.

Also read: Top 11 Golf Courses & Country Clubs in Johor (Include Golf Resorts)

Guest what? You can come to this breathtaking golf course with only a 1-hour drive from Singapore or 30 mins drive from JB city!

Legacy Golf Course
Holes: 18
Par: 72
Length: 7012 yards

Forest City Legacy Golf Course Highlight:

• International golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus.
• Golf cart, golf set, golf shoes and umbrella are available to rent
• Disabled golfers are welcome to participate as the golf carts are allowed on fairways.
• Standard female candidates in the golf course are a plus point here in order to increase the golf course playability.
• No driving range is set for the course.
• Forest City Phoenix International Golf Hotel is the 5-star hotel located in the middle of the golf course at the same time serve as the clubhouse of Forest City Legacy Golf.

5. Forest City Schools

1. Shattuck ST.Mary’s Forest City International School (SSM-FC) 嘉德圣玛丽森林城市国际学校

Have you ever imagined studying at an international school in Johor?

You got the chance now for children between ages of 3-18 to experience an America-style study program at Eco-friendly town, Forest City!

Shattuck ST. Mary’s Forest City International School (SSM-FC) teachers and students are from different countries, and with the boarding program available in the school, they believe students can learn to be independent and participant well in the global society!

Shattuck ST. Mary’s Forest City International School (SSM-FC) Program Offered:

• Early Years Childhood (ages 3-6)
• Elementary School (ages 6-11)
• Middle School (ages 11-15)
• High School (ages 15-18)

6. Forest City: The Ideas and People Behind It

Forest City is made up of four man-made Islands spanning 3,425 acres off the Iskandar, Johor Bahru in Malaysia. It is also very near to Singapore, just a forty-minute drive so you can access it from there too.

Most of the island is made up of reclaimed land with maximum care not to cause any damage to the sea environment.

Forest City is a partnership between the Chinese real estate behemoth, Country Garden Pacific View (CGPV) and the Johor royal family.

Country Garden holds majority shares of the City at about 60%. A total investment of around 150 billion USD (about RM 170 billion) has been put into the project, with full completion expected in 2033.

The developments will include housing units in particular two and four bedroomed condo apartments which will cover 818 and 1915 square feet respectively.

Interested parties can visit the island to view the property or book the apartments. And they better hurry before it’s too late. The proposed City has attracted international attention and the residential property is selling like hotcakes.

Country Garden also plans to build points of entry from Malaysia and Singapore with a ferry and light railway transit network being at the centre of all that. Middle to long term plans also includes an electric high-speed railway linking the City to both Singapore and Malaysia.

Country Garden has been doing such projects in China for quite some time and they have been met with a warm reception, with their residential properties being sold out in no time.

They have planned and developed about 100 green cities around the world. Forest City is, therefore, a project undertaken by professionals with a good grasp of town planning and development.

Impact on the Environment

In their push for environmental friendly and sustainable development, Country Garden, the company behind Forest City have presented a detailed environmental impact assessment for approval by the federal Malaysian

Environmental Department, which has the mandate to preside over all issues to do with the environment.

The developers are working together with international ecological consultants G-Energy to look for ways the project can go “green” and energy efficient to gain recognition by Malaysia and Singaporean green project rating bodies, GreenRe and Green Mark.

Eight economic pillars

Apart from being a residential, recreational and holiday getaway, Forest City will be driven by 8 economic pillars which will enable it to be a center of the following:

• Education – To this effect, Country Garden has partnered with other stakeholders and plans to set up schools and other educational institutions in the new city.
• E-commerce – Country Garden has made deals with big technology companies like Huawei to make e-commerce a reality. This is in addition to the Marina Commercial Center which is set to be completed soon.
• Foreign Investment – The Island city has great economic growth potential and Foreign Investors will want to be a part of it all and have a share of the profits.
• Tourism – Forest City is set to attract hundreds of thousands per year for tourism. What with the well-manicured gardens, rooftop vegetation and lush green scenery. Not forgetting the immaculate waters surrounding the island. Definitely, a place you want to take a trip to, even better with your family
• Entrepreneurship hub – The way the island is designed and the large population will make it attractive to entrepreneurs who would like to start various businesses.
• Retirement Community– A Retirement Community where you can go to find peace and serenity in your retirement after working in noisy and congested towns all your adult life.
• MICE– which basically means Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibition center. A top-notch hotel and conference hotels are part of the plan.
• Financial services hub – there will be several international banks and financial services companies having branches here.

Photo credits: forestcitycgpv.com

Looks Like A Forest

The main idea of the development was to create an environment where luxury peace and nature blend together to create a futuristic feel to it.

From above, the City looks just like a forest, which was the intended effect. Trees and vegetation are part and parcel of the architectural design of Forest City, mixing perfectly with innovative and never seen before development to create a magnificent ‘Paradise of Nature’.

The design includes vegetation on the rooftops of buildings which serves a number of purposes, energy saving, absorbing dirty polluted air and releasing clean purified one, noise absorbing and for aesthetic purposes.

Add that to a 10km coastline with natural mangrove forests, scenic water view and the end result is amazing.

The fresh air and reduced noise make forest City an urban area taken deep into the depths of nature itself and a perfect getaway from a chaotic existence.

7. What Is So Unique About Forest City?

The answer to that will be EVERYTHING. And it’s the absolute truth. For starters, when you get there you will be shocked to see no cars or car parking facilities. You will even be more shocked to learn that all that is underground.

Yes, you heard that right, Forest City is a 3-dimensional multilayered city divided into three layers. The first layer, at the surface and the most visible contains the residential areas, public parks, footpaths, health and fitness centers, swimming pools and recreational facilities including a world class hotel.

The second level will contain the public transport system such as a passenger light rail and retail outlets such as food and drinks kiosks. The last layer will now include the roads and expansive car park facilities.

The transport system is designed to be eco-friendly and efficient to serve the transport needs of the more than 200,000 projected residents of Forest City.

At Forest City, you say goodbye to traffic jams and the disturbance cars are notorious for causing, especially when you need to rest. Never before has nature been so welcoming of technology and urban development.

Photo credits: forestcitycgpv.com

Country Garden is working in conjunction with major players in the telecommunications industry like CELCOM and Huawei to make Forest City a smart city, the first of its kind in Singapore and Malaysia.

The smart city will be competing in the same league with the likes of Silicon Savannah in California in terms of being a technology and innovation hub.

Photo credits: forestcitycgpv.com

The security system of the island integrates the Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology which is a database of all the buildings and their blueprints.

This helps a lot in security management and decision making in times of security emergencies. There is also close surveillance and 24-hour patrols by security team on the four islands.

The city is expected to directly or indirectly employ more than 220,000 jobs from its construction to completion stages.

The impact of large job creation on the economy of Johor Bahru will be huge, and of course many families will have food on the table.

When he was officially opening the Forest City, Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Razak, the Prime Minister of Malaysia proclaimed the island a duty free zone.

In the ceremony attended by his senior minister and the Sultan Of Johor Ibrahim Ibni Almarhum, the Prime Minister declared the following measures set to attract investors:

• Tax free goods and services on the island. This, he said was to make the residents, investors and tourists to the island City enjoy their living, working and visiting experience. This will also significantly reduce the cost of living and doing business there as taxes make up a large part of prices of goods and services.
• Incentives on corporate taxes for developers of Green projects inside the island. The Project managers are not left out too as they will also enjoy the tax incentive.
• There will be no restrictions on the equity held by foreigners in a company for it to enjoy the corporate tax reductions. This will sure bring in more foreign companies to invest in the future city.

The above measures by the Malaysian government shows that they are fully behind the concept of Forest City and nothing will make investors more confident than the knowledge that the government has their back.

Photo credits: forestcitycgpv.com

With all the awesome things you have read (and probably heard), Forest City is a place you definitely want to visit.

All the things you have read about are nothing compared to actually being there. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words but we say a visit to the island is worth more than a million words.

And while there make sure to check out the hospitality and conference facilities there, the five star hotel is in a class of its own.

There are a lot of fitness centers that you can visit to keep fit and healthy after which you can take a dip in one of the numerous swimming pools there.

For vehicle owners who have had to deal with long traffic jams which increase their fuel costs, there is no such thing in Forest City. The underground road network is well designed and built to connect all the islands to each other and to Malaysia and Singapore.

If you are into speed and precision transport, you can try out the light rail transport available on the island and you won’t be disappointed. With this you can move from one corner of the island to the other in just a couple of minutes.

Pay a visit to Forest City and you won’t be able to put your phone or digital camera down. All the beautifully designed high rise buildings with trees on their roofs and the green public parks will keep your camera flashing. You might even gain the experience to be a pro photographer!

This is also a paradise for television, newspapers and magazines photospreads. The natural backgrounds and green scenery will add to your photos and give them that natural beauty.

We can go on and on about how an amazing place Forest City is, but you will never get it unless you take a personal tour, family, friends and pets can also come.