State Exco for Local Government and Pandamaran assemblyman Ronnie Liu has agreed to intervene in the land dispute between the developers and the residents of Kampung Jalan Papan and Kampung Bukit Kerayong.
Ronnie had declined to intervene after his previous attempts failed due to a lack of a common position among the residents.
The relationship between Liu and residents deteriorated after the state government could not fulfill the villager’s request for state government to buy over the land last year. The villagers then turned to DAP MP Charles Santiago for assistance who also failed to find a solution.
Liu said he will let go of the past and focus on finding a much-delayed solution.
“I am willing to start over again, and I know State Exco of Housing, Building Structure and Squatters Iskandar Abdul Samad is co-operating with me,” he said. Liu has also revoked the eviction order issued to the villagers.
Liu browse through development plan
He first attempt now is to unify the different requests between the residents.
“The demands are now varied between a group of residents who accept the 18’ X 65’ double-stories units but requires the selling price to be cheaper than RM99,000; and another group who agrees with the price but requests bigger units,” according to Liu.
“They shouldn’t change their minds all the time. It is hard for (state government) to do things like this,”
Kampung Jalan Papan relocation committee chairman Ang Moh Chye, welcomed Liu’s decision to intervene. He asked that a meeting between the committee and developer be held to resolve the issue.
“Most of us reject the compensation scheme. We are asking for a 20’ X 70’ unit for free,” he said. But he added that the residents are willing to discuss the issue.
Liu said that the state government cannot set a precedence to ask the developer to grant villagers free units.
“There are about 4000 squatter zones in Selangor. If we do that, every developer from now on has to relocate squatters with free unit,” he said.
However, Ang said that the villagers should not be treated as squatters as they were the one cultivated the virgin land some 70 years ago.
He disagreed with the developer’s request to pay RM99,000 for a unit, which is said to have a market price of RM 200,000
Ang asked the developers to explain how the compensation scheme will create a loss for the developers, who have announced that they expect RM 18 million in profits from the development
Jimmy Tan
Admin
