About 100 residents of Sg Ara staged a protest this morning over an RM800m high-end hill-slope development project in their area.
They are peeved that the MPPP approved planning permission for a hill-slope development project in their area on 2011. The planning permission permission was given subject to technical conditions in a geotech report and an EIA report.
In 2007, the Penang Structure Plan was approved and gazetted. This plan forbids development in areas exceeding 250 feet above sea level and on hill-slopes with a gradient of more than 25 degrees. But according to the state government, there is an exceptional projects (projek istimewa) category for those projects classified as low density general housing before the Structure Plan was tabled and these may be exempted from the prohibitions subject to meeting technical conditions. Such projects are also believed to require the approval of the State Planning Committee
Planning approval was submitted on 21 December 2011 and approved on 26 March 2012, after the MPPP went through the motions of seeking public objections last June. The approval was based on the green light given to the geotech report by a committee on high-risk development and the EIA by an environmental committee.
The question remains: why did the MPPP approve this project when there are new guidelines on hill-slopes in place? Based on its old zoning plan in 1996? Surely times have changed and that zoning plan should be superseded in view of the state government's policy of not approving any more new hill-slope developments. After all, the present state government claims that it has not approved a single hill-slope project since taking over in 2008.
Who decided that this is a projek istimewa and on what legal grounds?
And doesn't the MPPP now have a right to reject planning permission for projects that are not in the public interest – e.g. congestion, environmental degradation, and hill-slope risk? Does it really have no choice but to approve?
A Penang state exco member has denied allegations that the state government had tried to influence the MPPP to approve the hill-side projects in Sungai Ara.
For full report, check out Anil's blog below:
No comments:
Post a Comment