KUALA LUMPUR: CITY Hall maintains that it has not given approval for the development of a controversial housing project at Taman Rimba Kiara in Taman Tun Dr Ismail (TTDI) here.
Mayor Datuk Seri Mohd Amin Nordin Abd Aziz said the project was pending approval as it was still under the Rule 5 objection process.
“City Hall is collecting objections from interested and relevant parties,” he said yesterday.
Amin said City Hall executive director (planning) Datuk Mohd Najib Mohd would chair a meeting on the project and note the objections against it.
However, he said, people should know that individuals or organisations that owned any land had the right to develop it.
Amin said that longhouse residents in TTDI were expected to be relocated to a new housing area once the project, should it pass the objection process, was completed.
“City Hall offered these residents People’s Housing Programme (PPR) units and public housing, but they declined,” he said.
Asked how the status of the land at Taman Rimba Kiara was changed from public to private land, Amin said any party could apply to own any land, adding that in this case, the application was approved by the Federal Territories land executive councillor.
Federal Territories Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor had earlier said the development project would proceed despite objections from TTDI residents.
He said the development would not disturb the Rimba Kiara recreational area, which was a concern of TTDI residents.
Tengku Adnan said 180 units of the affordable apartment block would be given free to former estate workers, who were TTDI’s original residents.
He said the housing project at Taman Rimba Kiara would include the construction of a 29-storey affordable apartment and eight serviced apartment blocks.
The TTDI Residents Association, at a town hall meeting last weekend, protested the housing project development, and said it was mulling legal action should the project proceed.
It claimed that TTDI would be overwhelmed with 8,000 to 10,000 new residents as a consequence of the project.
It had also discovered, via a meeting with City Hall, that the development would involve extensive road construction in the suburb.