Authorities to publish manual on development
The Sun 4/8/2005

PETALING JAYA: Loopholes and grey areas in municipal laws will be plugged with a manual for planning standards, currently being developed by the Selangor Town and Country Planning Department.

This manual will be a key reference for guidelines on development in municipalities and will clearly spell out regulations and requirements, which local councils have to adhere to.

The proposed Selangor Structure Plan 2020 takes a more macro view and does not go into specific
details, but the manual contains specific guidelines on various matters pertaining to development, department director Datin Paduka Halimaton Saadiah Hashim said at a public briefing on the plan in
Subang Jaya yesterday.

This includes density, road width, traffic dispersal systems and community facilities, she said.

Once the manual is approved, it will be mentioned in the structure plan where there will be a note requiring local authorities to follow the instructions and guidelines.

"This manual will be updated every five years," said Halimaton, while answering questions on lackadaisical enforcement and congestion in town centre due to poor planning and population increase.

She said the department is formulating the manual with input from government agencies, professionals and experts from institutes.

"Input from the public will also be taken into account," she said. Other issues, which were raised during the briefing, were discrepancies in figures and absence of reliable data in the structure plan.

This included data, which stated that 90% of rivers in Selangor are clean although just three years ago the State Structure Plan Study reported 90% of rivers, were dirty.

Section 5 residents association legal adviser Derek Fernandez questioned weaknesses in enforcement.

He pointed out weak compliance to present local plans, including the development of Bukit Cerakah despite it being gazette as a forest reserve and water catchments area in the 1996 Local Plan.

Teresa Thng from Subang Jaya suggested that some form of bench marking be adapted in the plan. "When we say we want to improve the water and air quality by how much and by what standards?"

Benchmarks to measure up to the standards of the Department of Environment, for example, can be
use to evaluate whether environmental quality targets have been reached, Tong said.

Also discussed were concerns over re-development plans in already saturated areas such as Petaling Jaya and the non-renewal of land leases to accommodate this.

Approached later, Halimaton said there was no need for landowners to be worried, as the state did not plan to retake the land once the lease expires.

"Some of the areas will be re-zoned to allow owners to convert it for commercial purposes according
to the guidelines laid down by the authorities concerned," she said.

The objection period for the draft state structure plan has been extended to Aug 31.