Ara Damansara

I’m wondering if this padlock is legal.   It completely locks up a gate that leads to a designated access path to the community park between Ara Impian and the semi-dees.  The legality of fencing the park was also in contention some time ago.

Anyone care to enlighten?

We wish all Chinese celebrating the Year of the Water Dragon, Gong Xi Fa Cai!
May this year brings your lots of luck and happiness too. For the newly weds,
may your wish for a Dragon son comes true!

For all others, enjoy your holiday break and drive safely!

Source: the Sun

SHAH ALAM (Jan 12, 2012): Selangor residents can from Jan 17 use a toll-free line to lodge complaints on garbage collection.

State executive councillor in charge of local councils Ronnie Liu said the hotline, 1-800-88-2824, would be manned from 8am-6pm daily. Complaints made after these hours will be recorded by an answering machine.

“All complaints made during operating hours will be dealt with immediately, with contractors sent to the location to clear and dispose the garbage. Complaints made after 6pm will be dealt with the next day,” he told reporters after a state executive council meeting here yesterday.

The hotline is part of the state’s initiative to address the problem of uncollected garbage, including deliberate mass-dumping on streets and back lanes. It also follows recent acts of sabotage in rubbish collection, where truckloads of rubbish have reportedly been strewn in several areas in Shah Alam, Petaling Jaya, Klang and Subang Jaya.

Selangor Mentri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim last week disclosed that there had been instances of deliberate rubbish dumping in areas that had just been cleaned.

He had reportedly said the acts were part of a coordinated effort to show that the state, especially local councils, were not able to manage waste collection effectively.

Liu said residents could also use the hotline to lodge complaints on delays in rubbish collection by local councils.

The hotline is expected to enable the state to determine the percentage of complaints resolved and response time.

Since her soft opening more than 6 months ago, many more shops have made their presence at this neighbourhood mall. Famous brands like Harvey Norman and Mc Donalds are now in business, much to the delights of many residents here. The place is coming alive with larger crowd and some of the eateries are doing roaring business. However, the critical mass is not there yet and many shop lots remained shuttered. But it is looking promising as days go by as many more outlets have lined up for an opening.

The car park is still free and security personnel are stationed at both the entry and exit points. Since the auto-gate is not yet in operation and anyone can easily drive through, many have wondered the purpose of the security personnel. Perhaps they are there to check if we are bona fide shoppers? We do not know when charging will start but we hope the rates will be attractive. Shoppers want to shop at their own leisure. Others just want to have their favourite cup of coffee and watch the world go by. And the last thing they want is the thought that they have to fork out the equivalent of a cuppa for the parking. For a very young mall that is yet to be fully occupied, a wise thing the management of this mall should do is to keep the rates extra low. Certainly, it can’t remain free forever as it will be a magnet for residents across the road. The parking fee should be attractive. How about free parking for 1st two hours and a ringgit for every subsequent 4 hours?

The mall currently has quite a good tenant mix: a supermarket, a reputable electrical and electronic chain, a book store, a good number of restaurants, a limited number of fashion stores and even a bank! It will be great if there is a cineplex too.

Here are some shops that will be opening soon, what other shops would you like to see here?

We wish all residents in Ara Damansara and our friends and acquaintances near and far, a very Happy New Year.

May all your wishes come true!

Users of the Tropicana link are generally an impatient lot. More so if they are heading towards Bandar Utama. There is a U turn near Menara Lien Hoe but it’s a few hundred metres away. During peak hours, the queue is long and a ten to fifteen minutes wait is not unusual. Sometimes, extra cautious drivers made things worst as they will make the turn only when the road is empty. If they see the shadow of a car which is still many seconds away, they will wait. And they will move the car only after the car has long passed. All it takes is just a handful of such drivers and you have the compound effect of seconds running into minutes.

The extra distance and the long waiting time has thus enticed many drivers to take a short cut at the T-junction near the Tropicana main entrance. They know it’s illegal but the advantage is hard to resist. Occasionally, they do find themselves caught as they are waved down just before the tunnel. Our man in uniform are smart and when they see an opportunity to enforce the law, they do.

Another reason users are reluctant to use the U turn is the timing of the traffic lights. At a T-junction, there are three group of road users and the lights will change in a round robin fashion. Common sense will tell us that the largest group of users should be given a bigger allocation. This is to ensure there is no bottleneck. For some reasons, this is not the case here and one group of users seems to be given more time than required. This has created a problem at this junction when two group of users are always kept waiting when there is hardly any traffic for the 3rd group of users. During peak hours, a very long queue can be seen stretching more than half a kilometer away and complaints to MBPJ seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

One community staying near by has been asking for a right turn so that users of the Tropicana link at the end of this road can make a right turn towards the tunnel. We were told there were resistance from another influential community in the area and thus the request has been gathering dust in the MBPJ office. Several months ago, the request was made again in a meeting with the local councillor and MBPJ and MBPJ’s engineering department has confirmed there is no technical reasons why the request should be turned down.

Persistence finally pays off and the request has now been granted. Work has started a few weeks ago and it is almost ready just waiting for the road to be re-surfaced and the traffic lights re-calibrated. It should be ready in a few weeks time, hopefully before the Chinese New Year.

We hope the re-calibration will be done fairly so that all road users have their fair share of time based on traffic volumes. In addition, we hope MBPJ will also re-calibrate the two traffic lights further down the road heading towards Kota Damansara. They are causing unnecessary stoppages as there is hardly any traffic exiting from the neighbourhood.

Merry Christmas to all Christian residents in this neighbourhood.

To all others, have a good holiday break!

Source: Star Dec 20

RESIDENTS in Kelana Jaya will face a traffic dilemma come end of March when the mixed development project Paradigm officially opens its doors.

“Right now, we enter and exit our residential area through Jalan SS7/26.

“Once the development is completed, it will be changed to one-way and the road will only allow cars to come in to SS7 from the Damansara-Puchong Highway (LDP).

“Cars going out of the area will have to use the other exit near the Kelana Jaya Medical Centre,” said Kelana Indah Residents Association chairman Dr S. Vignes.

Dr Vignes and representatives from several condominiums in the area recently called for a press conference at the site to highlight their problem.

The Paradigm development consisting of a shopping centre and three blocks of office towers, is located along the LDP in Kelana Jaya, just opposite the Giant hypermarket.

Dr Vignes said a new tunnel had been built for cars coming out of Paradigm and the surrounding houses to get to the opposite side of the LDP without a need to wait at the traffic light.

“Besides Kelana Indah, there are also many condominiums and offices such as Sterling, Kelana Putri, Kelana Putra, Tiara Kelana and Kelana Square. These residents and office workers use Jalan SS7/26 to get onto the LDP,” he said.

Residents foresee a bottleneck at the exit just outside of the Giant Hypermarket because traffic from the tunnel, the Shell petrol station and from another new development Tarragon will all be merging into a one-lane service road that was dedicated to cars from the LDP turning into the hypermarket and the SS6 area.

Federation of SS7 Residents’ Associations (G7) committee member Francis Koh said in view of that situation, traffic would be backlogged into Paradigm and SS7 especially during peak hours.

“We are already experiencing bad congestion during peak hours now. Imagine how bad it is going to get with more cars expected to come from these development,” said Koh.

Dr Vignes said the developer was supposed to widen the road which connected the tunnel to the LDP, but the land at the edge of Giant’s car park had not been acquired for that purpose.

“We were told that the land belongs to the EPF (Employees Provident Fund) and not Giant.

“The EPF needs to get approval from their contributors before they can sell the land.

“There have been meetings with the Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ), Litrak and the Malaysian Highway Authority but we have not heard any decision being made on the land acquisition, even though the mall is expected to open in three months,” he said.

Paradigm project manager Kuek Yong Huei from Jelas Puri Sdn Bhd said they were committed to widening the road but would not be able to do so until the 420sqm plot of land had been acquired.

There have been meetings conducted with various authorities in April, June and November and the EPF now requires an official request to acquire the land.

Dr Vignes said as long as the authorities stall on the land acquisition submission, the EPF would not be able to process the request and the road widening would be delayed. This in turn, would cause a major inconvenience to residents.

Kelana Jaya MP Loh Gwo Burne said he would call for a meeting with MBPJ to find out which authority should submit the application to acquire the land from EPF.

“They should then proceed with the application process so the land can be acquired and the road widened,” he said.

Dr Vignes said while the land issue was being sorted out, residents want the Jalan SS7/26 exit to remain two-way.

“If they make the road one-way before the tunnel bottleneck is addressed, we will have a nightmare trying to get out of this area,” he said.

Artist impression of proposed fencing at Ara Impian

Ara Impian is a collection of four neighbourhoods in the old phase of Ara Damansara namely Chelmsford, Palemo, Calarossa and Berkeley. Chelmsford is the smallest neighbourhood with less than 50 houses but collectively, they are a medium size community with a total of about 400 houses.

All four neighbourhoods share a common entrance today but an outsider will find it a bit strange there are three separate guard houses: one each for Palemo, Calarossa and Berkeley.

In terms of security, Berkeley is the current leader. She is the first in this community to create a gated and guarded neighbourhood following the footsteps of Attilia and Alissia community.

It is not easy to create a gated and guarded neighbourhood. There are differing opinions and almost everyone wants a say. It takes a lot of time and sacrifices of the volunteers to plan, engage, arbitrate and finally to gain consensus. Even then, it will not be 100%.

Recently, all residents in Ara Impian were invited for a potluck gathering. Many may know their immediate neighbours or someone across the streets. Unless you share some common grounds like both your kids go to the same school, it is quite unlikely you will know someone staying in another neighbourhood. So this event creates an opportunity to make new friends and extend your social network.

The residents came with a variety of food mostly home cooked but some took the convenience to order some fast food. There were games too for the children and their laughter were evidence they had a great time.

The highlights of the night was the announcement of a proposal to unite the community with a grand security plan. The proposal is for a gated and guarded community for Ara Impian. The fence will start from the border with the Semi-D neighbourhood with a common guard house at the common entrance and continuing along 1A/20 facing the Chelmsford neighbourhood. It then turns right following the big monsoon drain and joins up with the existing fencing at Berkeley.

With this grand plan, part of Berkeley’s fencing will become redundant. But not to worry, the plan was to dismantle the redundant stretches and to re-use them.

Now, the challenging part. It will take many more weeks and perhaps months before the project is confirmed. Don’t be surprised some residents will simply not participate. Some others may just pay lip service and will come up with a thousand reasons not to pay. The success or failure will hinge on the supporters, many share the belief it’s a small price to pay for a secured environment for themselves and their family. What’s the point of working hard to earn a living and then living in fear that you or your family members may be the next robbery victim?

When this project do get the mandate to proceed, it will represent a huge achievement: a community who is willing to come together putting aside their personal agenda and differences to create a more secured neighbourhood. Less obvious is this project complements another neighbourhood next door, the Semi-D community which is already gated and guarded. Together, they form a tightly controlled zone covering more than 500 houses with two round-the-clock manned entrance equipped with security cameras.

The vision of a safe and secured neighbourhood for all residents at Ara Impian is enough to give this project your support. I can’t think of a good reason why it shouldn’t.

What’s your view?

Source: Star Dec 2

HOUSEHOLDS in Petaling Jaya might end up being charged for disposing of garden refuse if the working paper being prepared by the Petaling Jaya City Council’s (MBPJ) Health Department gets the nod at its sub-committee meeting to be held soon.

Councillor Ahmad Yusof Ludin has called upon the MBPJ to charge ratepayers for the collection of garden refuse.

“Recently, we have noticed that residents just choose to dump the tree trunks, branches and leaves on the road side.

“Our contractors are forced to pick up the waste and the council has to fork out the money to pay for the collection,” he said at MBPJ’s full board meeting.

MBPJ has 10 contractors to collect garden waste in Petaling Jaya.

Another councillor, Muzammil Hafiz, supported Ahmad Yusof’s proposal for charges to be enforced.

“In the past, Alam Flora used to charge for the collection of waste from the residents compound but now it is free.

“We have to discuss the matter thoroughly to ensure a mechanism is in place,” he said.

Later, mayor Datuk Mohammad Roslan Sakiman told pressmen that the council collected between 170 and 200 tonnes of garden waste month.

“We pay the contractors RM240 for a tonne of waste collected.

“At this moment we have not decided to charge but we will impose a charge to maintain some kind of control on how the waste is to be disposed of,” he added.