Rather than banning all hill-slope development, the developer-friendly Penang state government wants to emulate Hong Kong in monitoring hill-slopes and it has set up an expert panel.
In Hong Kong, those who flout regulations end up in jail.
This could be the panel’s first assignment. A long-time Penang resident has alerted me to the following:
(A couple of days ago,) when driving back from a day of walking in the Penang National Park, I saw a hill-slope project that is surely one of the worst along the Batu Ferringhi road…. It is east of the Rasa Sayang and on the hillside opposite the Malaysian army base (former Gurkha base) at Fort Auchry.
With a slope of well over 30 degrees, perhaps even 40 degrees, the entire hillside up to the crest line has been denuded of tree cover revealing bare laterite strewn with scores of massive and precariously suspended boulders among which a mechanical digger was at work. Another disaster waiting to happen!
This is an upmarket condominium project with prices ranging from RM750,000 to RM2.6 million. Also semi-detached homes.
Would some kind soul care to snap a couple of pictures?
Says blog reader Plain Truth:
When it rains heavily, one of the last places on the Penang Island that one wants to be at is along the Batu Ferringhi coastal road with the hillside mud and water pouring down.
If these hillside developments are not curtailed, it is just a matter of time before disaster strikes.
That costal road is potentially a deathtrap.
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When it rains heavily, one of the last places on the Penang Island that one wants to be at, is along the Batu Ferringhi costal road with the hillside mud and water pouring down.
If these hillside developments are not curtailed, it is just a matter of time before disaster strikes.
That coastal road is potentially a deathtrap.
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Either the state government has to work hard now and set a firm policy decision or wait for the disaster to take place.
The choice is with the state government, surely LGE can differentiate between a tree and the forest.
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I fully endorsed Plain Truth and his opinion. I live in Batu Ferringhi. As it is now, the road is covered in mud everytime it rain and traffic has to be controlled with a few foreign workers waving red flags to regulate traffic movements. The sea is cloudy with mud residue flowing down from the hill slope construction works. Disaster in Penang is waiting to happen, it is only a matter of time.
If it does happen, the party responsible shall be the present state government as it has the chance to stop the potential landslide and it didn’t.
Listen to the people. Visit the hill slop sites. Mark my word, it will happen. It is only a question of WHEN?
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Better to ban all hillslopes projects once and for all. Why? Because one or two potential inspectors in the future in monitoring hill-slopes maybe susceptible to duit kopi.
It would be tempting to brush aside a potential danger when someone gives you, say, RM10 mil to sweep it under the carpet.
We are talking about lives here.
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Not to mention that the entire Batu Ferringhi tourist stretch would be permanently destroyed forever. Stop the damn hillslope projects, I’d say! Hey Anil, some nice pics of the ongoing projects in your website would surely scare the wits out of many, including those who bought the properties without actually seeing the slopes (those from KL and Singapore!). See if they want to live in these houses!
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We have plenty of flat land so why the need to build on hillslopes? Why can’t we leave nature alone? Not giving approvals for hillslope projects will solve all such loss of lives & heartaches. One other way that the people can help tackle this problem is to boycott purchase of properties built on hillslopes.
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Penang island doesn’t have that much flat land remaining.
However, there are plenty of those over at Province Wellesley and they are a lot cheaper too.
No more approval for hill side projects please.
If developers can’t find the land to development, ask them to go over to Prai side.
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The Batu Ferringhi coastal road is not a flat road. It is on a gradient meaning that on the way up to the beach hotels, the road slopes upwards and on the way down to town, the road slopes downwards.
On one side is the hill where the bungalows / condo developments are taking place and on the other is a steep drop into the sea.
All it takes is a small boulder falling off the hill onto the road to halt the passing traffic.
The passing cars will then have to stop to let the opposing cars through. The road is narrow. U-turns and reversals are not possible.
Should such a scenario happen during a heavy downpour, the vehicles that are caught better pray hard that that is no landslide. They might just end up tipping over the cliff.
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The blame game has started. Everyone wants to blame the developers and the state government. The buyers too need to take some blames. I have always suggested to my friends on the island to consider buying properties at Province Wellesley, many do not want to consider at all. The impression is the mainland is backward, dirty, is too far away and I have a few who told me that they rather die than living on mainland.
So by limiting their options and their preference of living on hill overlooking the sea, as the chinese used to say, they have no one to blame but themselves. Why only protest after a disaster happened? Why not before? If the people is dead set against hill slope development, will the people of Penang come together and staged a massive protest?
Anil, you and me know that this will not happen. We are too selfish for our own good.
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Is there an association or NGO organizing some kind of a protest like those at Damansara 21? Let me know because I am damn angry now with the previous and the present state governments, really a bunch of idiots….
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It seems like Mr Anil is getting more selective and populist…
You selectively put up health arguments against Wifi/WiMAX that float around in the Internet, while neglecting any of the rebuttal and uncertainty reports…
You selectively emphasize and then keep harping about the government being “developer-friendly”, while fail to also mention about series of “not-so-developer-friendly” measures that were taken…
You argue that the government should become a total populist champion, by converting PTC land back to recreational purpose, by thrashing all the approved high-rise buildings projects, by burning all the hillside developments… and then goes bankrupt…
The setting up of committees and experts to investigate the troublesome hillside development is to predict and prevent a disaster from happening… but Mr Anil you seem to think that all these existing projects should just be thrashed and all the people living in there should be evacuated…
The emulation of HK’s system could largely discourage hillside development… and provide a much safer backup shall there be no more flat land to develop with… All these underlying theories are being neglected by Mr Anil, an ultra-left selective populist…
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One of the way to fight back against hillside development is to keep pressuring the authorities using the following catch 22 questions:
1) Ask whether there is any best management practice being implemented to reduce negative environmental impacts.
Call for regulations addressing all factors that have a direct impact on the quality of development at hill slope: regulating tree protection, limits on disturbance and impervious surfaces, building height and density.
2) Ask about the sort of best management practices being implemented if there is any.
3) Ask for a hillside development policy and ordinance if the state government really keen on hillside development.
4) Ask whether the state government should defer hillside development until a policy or ordinance exist to govern hillside development activities.
5) Ask which statutory body that responsible for monitoring hillside development activities.
6) Ask how the regulatory requirement of Urban Stormwater Management Manual governing hillside development is being implemented.
7) Ask about the person or committee or department in charge of overseeing the enforcement of the regulatory requirement of Urban Stormwater Management Manual governing hillside development.
9) Ask for the public display of topographic surveys, soils reports, hydrology reports and geotechnical analyses of affected hillside development.
10) Ask which ordinance regulate land disturbing activities to control accelerated erosion and sedimentation in order to prevent the pollution of water and other damage to watercourses, and other public and private property by sedimentation.
11)Ask about the type of permit required for any land disturbing activity.
12) Ask which statutory body responsible for the permit.
13) Ask under what condition such type of permit is required.
14) Ask about the type of plan need to be submitted for applying the permit.
15) Ask about the person responsible for reviewing the submitted plans.
16) Ask for public display of plan approval issued until all construction is complete, all permanent sedimentation and erosion control measures are installed and the site has been stabilized.
17) Ask for public display of critical areas identified at on-site areas which are subject to severe erosion, off-site areas which are especially vulnerable to damage from erosion and/or sedimentation, and areas of environmental concern must be identified and receive special attention.
18)Ask about Limit Time of Exposure – All land disturbing activity must be planned and conducted to limit exposure to the shortest feasible time.
19)Ask about Limit Exposed Areas – All land disturbing activity is to be planned and conducted to minimize the size of the area to be exposed at any one time.
20) Ask about Control Surface Water – Surface water runoff originating upgrade of exposed areas must be controlled to reduce erosion and sediment loss during the period of exposure.
21) Ask about Control Sedimentation – All land disturbing activity must be planned and conducted so as to prevent off-site sedimentation damage.
22) Ask about How Storm Water Runoff is being manage – When the increase in the velocity of storm water runoff resulting from a land disturbing activity is sufficient to cause accelerated erosion of the receiving watercourse, plans must include measures to control the velocity to the point of discharge so as to minimize accelerated erosion of the site and increased sedimentation of the stream.
Just ask this catch 22 questions, I can guarantee you no one from the state government can give you an immediate answer.
Let choose a target, say Mr Wong Hon Wai, the exco in charge of Town & Country Planning and Housing, keep asking him the above mentioned catch 22 questions until his answers can satisfy you, if he can’t answer, do not hesitate to make him look like a fool. Buy him a kite and ask him to fly instead of trying to fool around at our hillsides.
Next target the questions to the MPs of affected areas before we target the ultimate one, Mr Lim Guan Eng.
Once they can answer all those questions we can seriously consider whether to allow hillside development.
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Hillside and slope construction require sophisticated and advance civil engineering knowledge and know how in order to proceed, in Malaysia, both are lacking in private sector and monitoring agency, lack of meritocracy in our education system produce half past six engineers that are way apart from advance nation standard.
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This PR government led by Lim Guan Eng does NOT give a damn about Penangites’ concerns about preserving hillslopes and the quality of life on the island. He is only interested in securing his own ego and the profits of developers. He is an accountant by training. He only understands the power of money, money, money. Any difference with the BN clowns? Yes, different political party, that’s all.
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