Rep: MPPP must pay if they stop project

GEORGE TOWN: A state exco member said the Penang Municipal Council (MPPP) would have to pay compensation if they stopped a development project even if work had not begun.

Chow Kon Yeow, who chairs the State Local Government and Traffic Management committee, said the developer would have already incurred expenditure such as consultant fees which the council could be made to bear.

"Section 25 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1976 provides for compensation on expenditure incurred in implementing the approval prior to the revocation," he told a press conference here yesterday.

On Aug 8, former MPPP acting Town Planning Department director Khoo Boo Soon claimed that developers could only be compensated if work on the project had begun.

On another matter, Chow admitted that under Section 24 the council could revoke planning permission approvals and even impose new conditions on developers.

He said it could be done after such approvals had been given but it risked being challenged in court.

Chow also lambasted certain quarters for "refusing to accept" that 'special projects' were an exception to the Penang Structure Plan 2020's general rule that housing, hotels, resorts, commercial and industrial development cannot be allowed on hill land above 250ft or with a gradient exceeding 25 degrees.

"If Barisan Nasional is so keen on saving the dying and crying hills, it must at least account for the six projects approved during the first few months between the gazetting of the Penang Structure Plan 2020 in June 2007 until the change of government in March 2008," he said.

Chow, however, said the current state government had taken note of public concerns and steps had been taken to tighten technical guidelines for hill land developments.