PETALING JAYA: The cabinet has been urged to freeze approvals for all Rumah Wilayah Persekutuan (Rumawip) projects and other buildings not undertaken in accordance with the draft of the KL City Plan 2020.
Seputeh DAP MP Teresa Kok said the cabinet’s recent directive to Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) to freeze luxury condominiums and shopping complexes was not enough to address KL folks’ concerns at the way DBKL and the federal territories ministry were running the city.
She said many resident associations and MPs had protested at the way DBKL approved high-density Rumawip and non-luxury apartments by not following the land-use and building density specifications in the plan.
She said many of the projects were built in areas zoned for football fields and children’s playgrounds, and even where there were Tenaga Nasional Bhd high-tension electricity pylons.
“This issue has been highlighted many times by the Federal Territory MPs in Parliament, and various protests have been carried out by the residents and NGOs over the past years,” the DAP deputy secretary-general said.
“However, all our objections and pleas have fallen on deaf ears, and this compelled some residents in Taman Tun Dr Ismail to file a judicial review against the proposed massive development in the area,” she said in a statement today.
On Sunday, Finance Minister II Johari Abdul Ghani was reported by the New Sunday Times as saying that the government had frozen luxury property developments from Nov 1, following a Bank Negara Malaysia report warning that unsold residential properties were at a decade-high level.
He said the directive temporarily stopped development of shopping malls, commercial complexes and condominiums valued above RM1 million until the excess supply had been cleared.
Johari said the government would encourage affordable homes, costing below RM300,000 each. About 48% of the demand for homes are for affordable homes but the supply only met 28%.
On Feb 28 this year, Federal Territories Minister Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor announced that he would not approve the draft plan, which was first put on public display in 2008, as it was no longer feasible.
He said the current land value was different from that at the time the plan was drafted.
KL mayor Mohd Amin Nordin Abd Aziz later said there was no point in gazetting the original plan as 2020 was only three years away.
Instead, he said DBKL was drafting a new blueprint known as the Kuala Lumpur City Plan 2050.
Kok said the government had spent “millions of ringgit” to hire town planners and consultants to carry out studies and produce the draft 10 years ago.
She said the proposed plan was aimed at making Kuala Lumpur a “world-class city” by 2020.
“However, from the way the FT ministry, helmed by Tengku Adnan, administers the city, we can foresee that Kuala Lumpur is going to be a world-class mess in years to come.”
Sources from: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2017/11/21/kokhighrise-projects-not-in-line-with-kl-city-plan-2020/