I was surprised by the front page photo in the Star today:

I haven’t been to the place, so my view is based on the photo above only.

These folks are complaining on the hillside development BEHIND their property, but look at where their apartment is located! I guess its a case of who gets to the hill first! 🙂

Seriously speaking, those who are occupying properties on hillsides may need to be charged a premium for the upkeep and maintenance of the hills as well. Probably need to have a reevaluation of the assessment the residents pay. Those who stay in these kind of areas should be assessed on the areas on the hill that not unusable due to the location of their properties. In other words, if the whole hill has about 5000 square meters of surface, and there are 2000 resident units, then the 2000 unit should pay for the 5000 square meters as well! Terrible? maybe! Well, you want the view, you want the privacy, you want the cool air, and others can’t develop the area. So who going to pay for its maintenance?

Secondly, projects on hillsides should be banned and stay banned to avoid potential disasters in the future. Most of our high-rises were built within the last 30 years, so I think the time is ripe for disasters to happen due to lack of maintenance, massive development, underground movements etc. I won’t be surprised if another Highland occurs.

This is the whole article that accompanied the photo above:

KUALA LUMPUR: Residents of Mutiara Court in Taman Bukit Permai, Cheras, here, are living in fear of being buried under boulders if the development of bungalows on a clifftop facing their apartments is allowed to continue.

Taman Bukit Permai – popularly known as “Little Genting” – has had its share of landslides and “boulder rains” from the slope for the past 10 years, the most recent in September when an incident caused the car park in the apartment complex to be flooded with mud.

The 30m-high cliff is not far from the guardhouse of the apartment complex, which is currently home to more than 1,000 people housed in 321 units.

Three weeks ago, a developer started work on the clifftop to construct 26 bungalows, and a check at the site yesterday showed that the foundations for the buildings were being laid down about 12m from the edge.

Residents’ association joint management board chairman S. Madhavan said that when it rained heavily, rocks would fall down onto the apartments.

“With the construction on the clifftop, the rock fall risk is higher. We don’t want to be buried under a rock fall,” he said, adding that allowing construction on any steep slope or cliff was not a wise move.

Another resident, Siinh Tani, 42, said she did not want to share the same fate as residents in Bukit Antarabangsa, where a landslide happened in December last year which left five people dead and 14 bungalows crushed.

“Please stop the construction. You have seen what happened at Bukit Antarabangsa. This is about our safety,” she said.

K.C. Lim, 45, who has lived here for 10 years, said the developer should at least install a safety net to prevent rocks from falling down onto the apartments.

Wanita MCA Selangor government policy monitoring bureau chief Cindy Leong said construction was still ongoing despite the Federal Territories Ministry’s earlier order for a halt to hillside development in Kuala Lumpur.

“The residents don’t feel safe and they are worried. We want the Government to put a stop to the construction, assess the situation and come up with a thorough report on the development.

“They should also meet with the residents to give them updates on the situation,” she said.

Leong said one resident had written to the Ampang Jaya Municipal Council (MPAJ) to complain about the development but was told that “a complaint from one person was not enough”.

The residents, she added, later collected 85 signatures and wrote to both MPAJ and Pandan MP

Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat, who is also Transport Minister, on the matter.

In November 2001, boulders and rocks fell near the apartments, sealing the only route in and out of the complex.

Last year, the residents were shocked by another landslide, this time caused by a damaged drain at the top of Bukit Permai which also flooded the car park at the apartment complex with mud.