PJ Walk

During a workshop discussing the budgetary planning for year 2010 two weeks ago, we spoke about revitalising the city life of Section 52 Town Centre. Yesterday I met an owner of a coffee shop in the State area, he, too spoke about the deteriorating business in the State, which form the core area for Section 52. According to him, business volume is diminishing because people are not coming on day time due to lack of car parking. Fewer people come over on night time because NO activities that attracted them to come. He worried if this trend is continue, he might have to move out from this area. While businesses can come and go, but if the concern came from a man who has been here for the last 40 years, then something should have to be done.

First, we should recognise that State is no more the place that everyone must come unlike previous years. In the past, customers of Hong Kong Bank, UOB Bank, Standard Chartered Bank or even MBSB have to come over as no other branches are available in other parts of PJ. People paying their assessment with MBPJ and quit rent with the Land Office, people taking driving license test with RTD, people applying for passport with the Immigration Department and etc have to come here for their business. Presently, these services are either provided elsewhere or served online in which people need not coming over. So, we have to figure out who are the customer based here and the targeted groups.

Secondly, we should also identify the activities mix in this area. Is the area still offering the important retail activities or moving towards the comparison goods or services? After identifying the availability of services and target groups, then only can we figure out the strength and weaknesses of this area. Upon then only can we further figure out the opportunity and threats for this area.

The normal practice of placing infrastructure first ahead of soft programmes is no more effective. Although building infrastructure is important, many of the time infrastructure alone is not sufficient. Activities that attracted crowd continually are more critical. We saw the popularity of food stall even though it is located in the remote area. We witnessed the big turn out for some concert with popular singers even though it was shown in area with bad transportation connection. In this respect, I am of opinion that Section 52 Town Centre is lacking activities, a unique one rather than infrastructure provision.

While revitalising Menara MBPJ is important, the exercise of doing so cannot be isolated. Any proposal to reactivate the square of Menara MBPJ has to take into consideration of the surrounding and compliment to the area. It is rather dangerous of renovating the square onto some space that compete with the surrounding activities. It is a situation of fish and water. Both cannot afford to go alone.

Last but not least, the exercise of revitalising the area should have incorporated the participation of all stakeholders. It is a plan to fail without the participation of stakeholders and if this happened, then it is tantamount of no plan.

Catch22@PJ:Service Apartment

Apartment is referred to multi storeys building with residential purpose. This concept was mooted to overcome the challenge of land shortage in the urban area as well as the emerging and changing life style of people. People nowadays like to enjoy club-alike facilities that are affordable and convenient within the vicinity of their living environment. Hence, apartment is getting popular days by days, simply because people have no choice due to availability or affordability or life style desire.

The concept of service apartment was further developed to take advantage of the development guidelines for apartment during the era of economic difficulty. In late 1990s, when Malaysia was badly affected by global economic downturn, the property market was equally in bad shape and many on going commercial development projects were stopped because of sudden drop of market demand. While commercial properties were not good, the demand for residential units remained strong. Thereby, in order to taking advantage of the residential market demand and to develop in faster pace, the developers built houses onto the commercial land. That's how service apartment came to play and it explained why the concept of service apartment is different from elsewhere. While service apartment is meant for medium-term of at least 7 days stay with services on offer, these include laundry, house keeping and etc, service apartment built then was meant for owner occupied and never of such services were offered. The owners however, are paying commercial rate for their assessment rate, water tariff and electricity bill and even the maintenance fee.

Not less than 80% of the total unit for a service apartment project should be kept by the developer, but this is never done so in Malaysia. Many of the service apartment units are built for sale and owner occupied. Some buyers who are unable to differential the differences between apartment and service apartment felt short change lately. This explained why lately there are occupiers of service apartment requested the assessment rate be reviewed and services provided to improve.

This is a Catch 22 situation here. While the building of service apartment is fast gaining popularity because of less procedures involved, the potential buyers should have been given more information and let them making an informed decision. If ample of information be given, such as maintenance cost, rate, utilities tariff and etc, I presume many will think twice before deciding on the purchase. If they have decided to do so, then it is illogical for them to complain about services and rate at later stage.

Of course for those prefer to stay within the commercial area, they will continue buying the service apartment. Of course this will change as well, if the Council decided to provide incentives for building more residential units in the city centre for fear of wasting resources during night time in the city centre.