Vista Subang residents stop council from carrying out ‘unwanted’ road work
Source: TheStar
THE move to build a new access road for Vista Subang low-cost flats in Ara Damansara hit a major snag when residents came out in droves to stop Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) from carrying out the work yesterday.
Residents from the low-cost flats as well as those from D’Aman Crimson Apartment opposed strongly to the move because they feel it was unnecessary.
The council had wanted to build the road to link the low-cost flats of 210 units to Jalan PJU 1A/41A though there is an existing access in Jalan PJU 1A/43 which runs through the Winchester housing project consisting 190 terrace houses.
Subject of controversy: This road, Jalan 1A/43, is currently the access road for both Vista Subang lowcost flats and the Winchester housing area.
The road was used by Vista Subang residents since 11 years ago while the housing project was built only about three years ago.
The proposed road is to be built on a buffer zone that is now used as a parking lot by the residents from the apartment. MBPJ had said that the Temporary Occupation Licence for the zone had expired.
“We do not need the road. We already have an access road that is very convenient, much nearer and shorter than the one they want to build, so what is the need to waste ratepayers’ money to do something redundant?” said Vista Subang joint management body chairman Mohd Muswan Abu.
“Is the council trying to please the richer residents who do not want to share the same access road with us?” he asked.
Part of plan: This green strip will be gone if a new access road is built for Vista Subang residents.
Muswan lodged a police report in the morning as the appointed contractor started clearing the land and moved several cars away for the purpose.
“In fact, my committee was also offered RM30,000 if we give our consent to building the new access road, but we have rejected it and lodged a police report on the offer,” he added.
D’Aman Crimson management office’s Yong Kwai Fatt, showed reporters the land’s TOL to prove that the licence was still valid until the end of the year, adding that the carpark also had licence from MBPJ to operate until the end of the year.
Carpark operator S. Sukumaran Nair said he was also going to lodge a police report as he was not informed about the clearing work at all.
Another resident, an expatriate who wanted to be known only as Antonia, asked: “What kind of rule is this? Does it mean if I have a better house, I can stop others from using the road in front of my house?”
He said the residents had attempted to highlight their plight with the authorities and made requests the legal way, but their calls were not heeded.
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Why are these folks complaining when they are the trespassers? I had always found it strange that they don’t have its own access road so what MPBJ doing now is making right the wrong of the past. And even more strange is that MBPJ has to file a police report, are they not the authority with powers to execute?
Firstly one thing about newspaper reports is that they are always not very accurate. Some facts are always misreported.
Taking what was published into consideration, the apartment residents have been there for 11 years while Winchester has been there for 3 years (must add that I remember Winchester to be there for more than 3 years), so the apartment owners are not the ones who are trespassing.
For what I understood, the plot of land currently WinChester is was originally proposed by Sime UEP and being approved by MBPJ to construct business center.
However, due to hot demand from public, it had been quietly amended to residential housing.
In fact, from what I can recall, Jalan PJU 1A/43 has been Vista Subang residents’ only access road for years, even before Winchester was completed.
This is just another proof of bad planning by developers and MBPJ.
Now, owners are suffering!!!
Dear Yip Yoke Teng (teng@thestar.com.my)& Christina Low, (christinalow@thestar.com.my)
Subject:
1) Vista Subang residents stop council from carrying out ‘unwanted’ road work
2) Work to build access road to continue
In the spirit of fair reporting by a Main Stream Media, I would like to refute most of the statements published in The Star under subject heading above as incorrect by submitting to you the following photos. Allow me to give you some history regarding this issue.
You will notice that immediately after Sime Pilmoor Sdn Bhd (a subsidiary of Sime UEP) launched and sold all the 188 Winchester link houses in June 2003, the developer of Aman Suria which is on the opposite side of NKVE namely GLOMAC Berhad, quickly commenced the building of the low cost flat (now called Vista Subang) on the empty land adjacent to Winchester (see the background picture).
At the time of the launch of the Winchester link houses, buyers were told that bungalows will be built at the adjacent empty land. Obviously, buyers only realized they were duped once the low cost flat commenced to rise rapidly. The question is, who would want to buy a residential house so close to a low cost flat, it doesn’t make any commercial sense! Would you put you money there if you had prior knowledge? else it would have been a different story.
By normal convention, link houses takes 2 years to complete & flats/apartment/condos takes 3 years to complete as per S&P but you can see from the above photo that the low cost flat was built at super fast rate.
This is because Glomac had every intention to complete building the low cost flat first before the Winchester residents have any chance to move in because, then surely Winchester residents will not allow the low cost flats to break the concrete retaining wall separating the low cost flat & the Winchester project as they are not the same developer to begin with. Consequently, GLOMAC Berhad shall then be forced to build an access road for the low cost flats instead of encroaching into another project, namely Winchester by way of using road PJU 1A/43.
Although, the Winchester project was completed ahead of time within the specified 2 years, buyers were forced to wait for the low cost flat to be filled up first. Apparently, the issuing of CF to Winchester was delayed on purpose. Now the question is, why were Winchester residents not allowed to move in after the project is completed ahead of the low cost flat? One can only speculate of arm twisting by the previous local council to allow the low cost flat to move in first as this was a state project to relocate squatters.
The forced opening of road PJU 1A/43 to share with the low cost flat had cause a lot of anguish amongst Winchester residents & most are very unhappy about the situation. This situation would not have arisen had GLOMAC Berhad planned for a separate access road for the low cost flat right from the beginning but they had no intention of doing so.
Now, in trying to correct the situation by building another access road, to ease the heavy traffic on PJU 1A/43, this is additional infrastructure for the public use, why on earth does anybody want to reject it outright? Besides, they (Vista Subang & Crimson) were not asked to pay for it, well unless they have ulterior motives.
D’Aman Crimson management office only jumped into the bandwagon when their use of the public land (meant to build the access road) as car park was discovered by MBPJ. Crimson was frustrated when MBPJ demolish their car park booth. Imagine the monetary gain from the car park collection from the residents suddenly disappeared once the access road is built. What has this got to do with Crimson anyway? None but unfortunately Crimson saw Winchester as the instigator & now decided to partner the low cost flat to sabotage the building of the access road. See their “ulterior motive & interest” there!
In fact if I am a resident of the low cost flat, I will be happy if there are more access roads being built & in this case, they only have Winchester residents to thank. Nearer or shorter is only relative depending on the destination.
Trust you will publish this side of the story.
Best Regards