Hannah Yeoh and TTDI residents say no to scaled down Rimba Kiara development

KUALA Lumpur (July 22): Taman Tun Dr Ismail Residents Association (TTDI-RA), a group of longhouse residents living on Taman Rimba Kiara and MP Hannah Yeoh have stood firm on saying no to the scaled down Taman Rimba Kiara development.

In a move to preserve one of the city's last green lungs, Yeoh said that only two outcomes would be accepted. Either only the longhouse area meant for temporary housing would be developed, or all development plans should be revoked.

The Malay Mail quoted Hannah as saying: “I have also obtained support from the other KL MPs, seven of them.  

“They have given me a letter on our proposed resolution which is to revoke the development order given, and number two — if you want to continue to allow them to build, they must build in the current long house footprint — 4.4 acres and not go beyond the current footprint.

“The scale down version will never be accepted by me or the residents, even the longhouse residents. What they want is to retain their current livelihood there, no high rise... the longhouse resident has also presented it to the FT Minister and spoken about it at the town hall."

The scaled down plan has 1.6ha of open space taken up for development, down from 3.2ha in the original plan. 

Yeoh said that she had requested a meeting with newly appointed Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief Latheefa Koya to discuss the issue, as Federal Territories Minister Khalid Samad's predecessor, Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor had abused his power in granting the development of the Pavilion Taman Tun project.

“My hope is that MACC will look into all the reports that have been lodged, also the fresh report lodged by TTDI-RA last week. I hope that something like this, we have a say on this kind of governance. We don’t want this trend to continue.

“If MACC say there’s nothing wrong with something like that when there is a clear case of conflict of interest, then it will send the wrong message to all politicians in every GLC level that you can have the license to continue doing this,” she said.

She noted that if no wrong-doings were found by MACC, the laws in question, and the loopholes for politicians to abuse their power must be amended.