THE Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) recent announcement to turn Wangsa Maju's Section 1 into KL's first zero-carbon township, with an eco-conscious neighbourhood emphasising on green technology, is definitely a shot in the arm, so to speak, given today's penchant for vaccine jabs.
KL Mayor Datuk Seri Mahadi Che Ngah says this corner of Setapak was chosen because of its visibility as one of the largest and well-planned townships. Its centralised public facilities like schools, business centres and transportation hubs also make it easier to improve upon them. In the works are pedestrian walkways, jogging tracks and bicycle paths, and upgrading of ageing railings along residential areas.
If this project materialises, it will provide the sparkle to a neighbourhood, consisting mostly of low-cost flats, some shophouses and make-shift retail stores, a gated enclave of high-end houses built on an ex-cesspool and a newly-built condominium.
Residents of the low-cost flats, if I could recall, had the option of having piped cooking gas to their homes when the township sprouted. Now comes another interesting offer — solar power for dwellings, street lights, schools and Alpha Angle, the neighbourhood's first shopping mall.
DBKL wants the residents to experience the benefits of an eco-friendly township in the hope that once they've experienced it, they'll better understand DBKL's wider plans to go green and address climate change under the KL Low-Carbon Society Blueprint 2030.
DBKL also aims to convert empty spaces into landscaped gardens or urban farms. This is a welcome initiative since an area earmarked years ago for a large recreational area (G3), which I assume the G to be "green", has yet to take shape.
Wangsa Maju was carved out from the sprawling Hawthornden rubber estate after it was conceptualised during the Kuala Lumpur Federal Territory's 10th anniversary in 1984. Its proposed name sounded a mouthful then — Bandar Baru Titiwangsa Maju. Luckily, it was shortened to Wangsa Maju, which meant "successful or progressive people".
Nevertheless, I'm still perplexed why Wangsa Maju only has Sections 1,2, 4, 5,6 and 10 but no Sections 3,7,8 or 9 in between. The early charts denoted different parts of Wangsa Maju as "R", perhaps for regions or residential. Hence, we've a school named SMK Zon R1 and another as SK Wangsa Maju Zon R10.
Although some areas were demarcated as R9, R12 and R13 then, they didn't materialise till today. At the present state of development, I don't think it has any more land left. But I could be wrong as some undeveloped land "lurking around" Section 10 and Setapak Hot Springs may yet unlock this "section-naming" mystery.
I've a nagging feeling that some plots had been "superseded" by development. There was an area that previously housed a private mausoleum belonging to prominent businessman Loke Yew. I'd hazard guess that Desa Tun Hussein Onn, a residential complex for army personnel and their families, has "enveloped" it.
Years ago, I thought Wangsa Maju's commercial precinct would be named Section 8 since early town planning charts earmarked it as C8. Somehow it was named KL Suburban Centre (KLSC), perhaps to show affinity with the more famous KLCC Twin Towers.
Things get a little clouded when it comes to parliamentary boundaries. The Wangsa Maju parliamentary constituency not only encompasses Sections 1, 2 and 4, but stretches as far as Gombak, Danau Kota and Taman Melati towards the Karak Highway.
Other Wangsa Maju sections come under Setiawangsa, which means I get funny looks when I say that I live in Wangsa Maju but vote under Setiawangsa. Even the DBKL branch office in Wangsa Maju proper, not in Taman Setiawangsa, is named Setiawangsa while there's another DBKL branch office named Wangsa Maju in Jalan Gombak, perhaps in adherence to the parliamentary boundaries!
Except for these perplexities, everything else is humming along progressively. Like the mushrooming of many high-end condos and shopping malls or an ex-mining pool being prettied-up by DBKL for recreational purposes.
Even before Wangsa Maju came into being, the star attraction then and now has been giftware maker Selangor Pewter. Now other prominent establishments have sprouted up, including the National Translation Institute, National Sports Council Complex, Tuanku Mizan Military Hospital and TM's satellite earth station, to name a few.
Residents in other locales may feel green with envy with its progress, but Setapak's earlier landscape of padi fields, rubber estates and tin mines a century ago has certainly come a long way.
The writer is a former chief executive officer and editor-in-chief of Bernama
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times