I've often complained about the mushrooming of high-rise mixed developments in Petaling Jaya, when I had hoped that with the then Pakatan Rakyat having won the right to be the Selangor state government in the 2013 general elections, we would have seen changes to the Petaling Jaya "development" masterplans inherited from the previous Barisan Nasional state government, which would more tightly regulate and limit high-rise developments in favour of more people-friendly developments such as public gardens, parks, fewer potholed roads, better public facilities and so forth.
Whilst I can understand that such developments approved under the former Barisan Nasional government and which had already begun would have to be allowed to continue under the new Pakatan Selangor state government, however by around 2010, the new government could have begun to impose restrictions and regulations on future high-rise developments, with changes in policies for the benefit of the people of Petaling Jaya and of Selangor as a whole.
However, high-rise construction has continued unabated through the 2013 an 2018 general elections until today, 11 years of Pakatan governance of Selangor state, under which comes the Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) as well as other local councils in Selangor.
Why?
Well late last year, Peter Foo, my neighbour and Deputy-Chairman of a residents' association in my neighbourhood complained to me that the quite rent or cukai tanah in Malay (land rent) on his apartments in Millennium Square, Section 14, Petaling Jaya had been increased by eight times since he bought his apartment, in which he lives.
And, today 26 April 2019, Star Metro highlights Peter's and other high-rise residents' complaints.
This raises questions as to whether the Selangor state government has continued to allow high-rise mixed developments categorised as commercial or limited commercial in Petaling Jaya and Selangor, so that they can collect more quit rent for the Selangor state coffers.
Star Metro's article follows below:-
Drastic quit rent hikes after change shock apartment owners
Friday, 26 Apr 2019
OWNERS of high-rises in Selangor are seeing a drastic increase following the conversion of quit rent to parcel rent last year.
Residents living in stratified buildings, either commercial or residential, are seeing an increase of between 500% and 800% from the previous amount
Petaling Jaya resident Peter Foo, 76, has to pay RM292 – compared to RM34.11 previously – for his unit, which is categorised as a commercial development. This is a 756% hike.
Foo has been living in his apartment in Section 14 for 13 years, and finds the sudden increase illogical.
He said he was kept in the dark about the new fees.
"As citizens, we accept that the government should raise rates once in awhile but it should not be this high. If the rates are reasonable, we can accept it," he said.
Foo said 20% of the people living in his building were retirees and the parcel rent rates, on top of increases in water and electricity bills for commercial lots, would add to the cost of living.
Ninety-year-old Khaw Tee Joo was also affected by the sudden rise in quit rent. He now has to pay RM358 for parcel rent since last year, instead of RM41.86 formerly.
Florence Wong is now paying RM272 a year instead of RM31.78 for her 82sq m unit.
She said she was shocked to see her first parcel rent bill but did not get any answers when she asked her joint management body (JMB) about the sudden increase nor at the Shah Alam Land Office when she made payment.
She also said the parcel rent bill was not delivered to her home address.
"I received it from my JMB when I paid maintenance fees. My address is on the bill, why was it not sent to me?"
Foo and Wong said they wanted to know how PTGS came up with the figures for their parcel rent bill.
A resident and member of the management corporation of a condominium in Ampang, who requested anonymity, said residents had seen a 566% increase in land tax since the change.
"Previously, we would pay a total of RM800 for the bulk quit rent, which amounted to around RM6 per unit. But now, residents are being billed RM40 per unit.
"Many were confused about the change and there were problems with the payment method as well.
"Some had to go to the land office just to clarify issues as there was no information on their website," she said.
A JMB member of a condominium in Petaling Jaya, Meng Yew Choong questioned why the parcel rent bills were still being sent to the building management.
"I feel PTGS should send the bill directly to owners as their addresses are already printed on the bill.
"The land office is the one collecting the quit rent, not the JMB. It is not appropriate for PTGS to treat the JMBs as the post office, more so when a JMB is in charge of hundreds of units or even more than a thousand," he said.
Meng added that the management had to send out more than 900 bills to owners, some of whom do not stay at the condominium.
A friend and former journalist colleague has been doing some informal surveys by asking questions of staff of various high-rise developments in and around my neighbourhood and has learned that the majority of the units in these high-rise monstrosities are either unoccupied or unsold and staff of these buildings have been instructed to turn on the lights in some of the units to give the false impression that they are occupied.
Also, that some of these property developers are desperately holding promotional drives to get people to buy but there have been few takers.
It will be interesting to see how many of the monstrous high-rise developments in Section 13, Section 52 currently under construction or awaiting their Certificate of Fitness will sell once they are completed and approved for occupation.
And now, there's another proposal to build another monstrous high-rise development in Section 51A, Petaling Jaya, across the river, LRT line and electrical high-tension lines from Millennium Square.
The proposal in the MBPJ notice above is for:-
i. 12 units of shops or retail outlets on the ground floor of the podium block.
ii. Two blocks of serviced apartments (or 1,480 units) above 10 floors of car park.
iii. One 32-storey block of affordable housing (432 units) above an eight storeys of podium car park with residents' facilities on floors 1 and 9.
Now that's 1.480 + 432 = 1,912 units in all.
Residents of Section 14, Petaling Jaya are concerned about this proposed development adjacent to us.
On 18 December 2018, Star Metro wrote:-
Residents fear another high-rise
https://www.thestar.com.my/metro/metro-news/2018/12/18/residents-fear-another-highrise/
Meanwhile, I understand that MBPJ's technical sub-committee had told the developer to redo it's proposed plan, with the traffic report about the one way access road from Jalan Utara to the proposed development being one of the reasons for their objection.
As it stands right now, there is only one narrow road from its junction with Jalan Utara by Menara Axis which leads to the site of this proposed development and any idiot will know that the traffic going in and out of this proposed development plus existing traffic from the office, colleges and commercial buildings already along this road wll result in horrendous traffic congestion on Jalan Utara which will cause a kickback of traffic congestion of cars wanting to exit the Federal Highway nearby onto Jalan Utara, as well as traffic coming from Jalan Barat across the Federal Highway into Jalan Utara.
Some years back, the ring road comprised of Jalan Utara, Jalan Timur, Jalan Sultan and Jalan Barat was converted into a One Way Loop supposedly to facilitate faster and smoother flow of traffic all in one direction and any massive congestion on the One Way Loop, especially so close to the ramp coming up from the Federal Highway and traffic coming over from Jalan Barat will defeat the stated purpose of the One Way Loop in the first place.
I guess this is how the local and state authorities plan to make Petaling Jaya into a "liveable city".
I took this picture below in May 2017 of a new addition to our "liveable city" beside Jalan Barat and Jalan Sultan being under construction.
I guess the Petaling Jaya city centre centre in Section 52 (a.k.a. "PJ New Town Centre" or "PJ State"), where the MBPJ headquarters, the Petaling Jaya Civic Centre and the MBPJ tower are located is a model of a "liveable city" for the rest of Petaling Jaya.
Note our "liveable city" with bicycle lanes which nobody uses, I guess since very few cyclists dare brave the horrendous motor traffic on the roads to get to this city centre which sits on less than 1 square kilometre and perhaps is one of the world's smallest city centres. However, I suppose that these unused bicycle lanes, coupled with arty farty decorations such as displays of clay pots, figurines, community art, stages for musical performances and so forth make Petaling Jaya appear to be oh so "progressive" and "world class" a city.
Heck! The Messegelände Hannover (Hannover Fairgound) which houses a series of trade fairs all year round, including the CeBIT information and communications technology fair around March, is roughly 1km x 1km (1 sq km) in area and much bigger than the Petaling Jaya city centre.
Here is an interactive map of Messegelände Hannover:-
The trade fair organisers provided free shuttle buses for visitors and media to travel around this giant exhibition centre. Besides buses, the fairground is also served by a dedicated tram line and as well as Deutsche Bahn's (German Railways) Laatzen train station via a long overhead walkway to the fairground.
When I first covered CeBIT for The Star in 1996, I stayed at a homestay in Hannover and rode the U-Bahn (tram) to the fairground, well at least part of the way since with 800,000 fairground visitors converging in Hannover, a city of 500,000, the tram to the fair ground was chock full of passengers.
I covered CeBIt for a second time in 2005, and this time we stayed in the port city of Hamburg and commuted about one hour and 40 minutes each day to Laatzen Station by Deutche Bahn's ICE trains sometimes travelling at up to 200kmph and back the same day. However, there's a point along the way before Hannover where some kink or something like that in the railway track causes the train to lurch violently to the side, so standing passengers had better hang on tight or get flung to the side. I wonder whether they've fixed this problem by now.
Also, I noticed the German word "fährt" used a lot as part of longer words around the Hamburg seafront. I understand it means "journey" in German.
Meanwhile, new developments are taking place by the MBPJ headquarters and I took this photo below in the evening of 9 February 2019 and Jalan Young Shook Lin looks like it has morphed into Sungai Yong Shook Lin (Yong Shook Lin River) with water flooding outside of the Buy, Sell Trade store.
I suppose the authorities want to turn Petaling Jaya into the "Venice of South-East Asia" complete with gondolas and singing gondoliers rowing romantic couples along the rivers and canals of Petaling Jaya.
I'm sure the MPBJ would welcome the tourist dollar, yen, renmenbe, euro, peso, franc, etc.
Meanwhile, if MBPJ wants to make the Petaling Jaya city centre more arty farty, they should hold regular fährt-ing contests in the city centre, with the Mayor of Petaling Jaya handing out first, second and third prizes to the winners.
The fährt-ing contests must strictly comply international rules that contestants are disqualified if more than wind comes out, also since mostly wind comes out of the mouths of MBPJ and the Selangor state government.
Yours trully
Selangor Scheiss
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