Appeals Board decides in favour of Sungai Ara residents

"The Appeals Board this morning decided in favour of the residents of Persiaran Kelicap and Solok Kelicap over a “special project” on hilly land near them.

... The significant proportion of the site was higher than the threshold of 250 feet above sea level with slopes exceeding 25 degrees.

There were flaws in the planning approval: The state planning committee cannot delegate its powers for approving such sensitive hill land development to the MBPP, which has no authority to approve such projects.

The Penang Structure Plan, forbidding development above 250 feet was gazetted in 2007. Planning approval for the site was granted in 2012. So that’s another issue. It must be for planning permission given before the Structure Plan.

... Not a single reporter was present; so this is unlikely to be widely reported in the media. Many of them were up on Botak Hill for a site visit, arranged by the MBPP, which was scheduled for the same time. Penang Forum steering committe members were at both places."

For more details, please read Anil Netto at http://anilnetto.com/economy/development-issues/appeals-board-decides-in-favour-of-sungai-ara-residents/

Notification of Annual General Meeting - 13 February 2016

TANJONG BUNGA RESIDENTS’ ASSOCIATION

Notification of Annual General Meeting

Dear Members and friends of TBRA,

Our Association will hold its 2016 Annual General Meeting on

Date:    Saturday 13  February 2016

Venue: Meeting Room (Boardroom) Tanjong Bunga Market, 11200 Penang, 1st floor

Time:    3 pm  (if you are not a life member please come at 2:30 to settle annual payment of membership fees. We’ll be there to make it easy !)

Agenda:

The business of the Annual General Meeting shall consist of:

1. To receive the Chairman’s address;

2. To confirm the minutes of the previous General Meeting;

3. To receive and adopt the Annual Report by the Secretary;

4. To receive and adopt the Audited Statement of Accounts by the Treasurer;

5. To consider any resolution of which written notice should be given to the Secretary at least seven (7) clear days prior to the meeting;

6. To discuss matters of general interest;

Please do attend !

Yours sincerely

Peter Boyd

Secretary

For and on behalf of

Tanjong Bunga Residents’ Association                                           07 January 2016

Distribution: All Members

‘Hundreds of millions in compensation’?

Jan 15, 2016 by Anil Netto

In all my years of observing politics, whether local or foreign, I have never before come across an administration that so frequently warns of the possibility of having to pay “(hundreds of) millions in compensation” to developers or landlords. To me, this mantra seems to be a favourite fall-back position (to browbeat critics into silence?).

The latest occasion was when prominent lawyer Agatha Foo presented Penang Forum’s position on ‘special projects’ on hill land during a meeting with the state government in Komtar on 11 January 2016.

In a nutshell:

In 1996, a Development and Control Masterplan was drawn up. This was just a guideline that was never gazetted. Under this guideline, several areas of hill land under conservation were scandalously classified as housing (bungalow lots). No thanks to the BN administration back then.

In 2007, the Penang Structure Plan was gazetted, thus making it a legal document. This forbade development more than 250 feet above sea level and on slopes more than 25 degree gradient. But it made an exception, allowing limited development for ‘special projects’. Unfortunately, it did not provide a definition for special projects.

In 2009, the State Planning Committee came up with a guideline to define special projects, which seemed to widen their scope. It allowed public infrastructure and, for cases where planning permission had been approved before the Structure Plan was adopted, it accepted any change of conditions to housing.

Crucially, the 2009 guideline also accepted the hill land areas that were classified as housing zones in the 1996 masterplan, which was really only a guideline.

Penang Forum’s contention is that these areas should have been rezoned back to their original status, i.e. hill land under the Land Conservation Act 1960, in compliance with the Penang Structure Plan forbidding development above 250 feet.

No compensation need be payable as the rezoning would only apply to areas where no planning application had been approved and no development work had started (thus distinguishing it from the Boustead case in George Town where piling work had already begun and heritage conditions were later imposed to lower the height). Penang Forum is not asking for the revocation or modification of planning permission or asking that land be taken over for a public purpose; so the question of compensation should not arise.

Penang Forum also noted that planning permissions can only be extended five times; so, planning permissions approved before 2008 could not have been extended beyond 2012; therefore the 22 projects approved since 2012 are deemed new approvals. (The state government, however, claims applications can be submitted anytime.)

Stringent new conditions for hill land can be imposed when extending planning permissions.

If the Structure Plan only allows limited development for special projects, how could 55 high-rise blocks (including a hotel), approved since 2008, be regarded as “limited development”?

To this, the chief minister, after warning that the state government might be liable to pay “millions in compensation” if it did not approve these projects, then invited Agatha to meet his state legal advisors and try and convince them regarding Penang Forum’s position.

[The full text is available at this external link: https://goo.gl/OCg1oq]
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