Planning Authority

Who is the planning authority when it comes to deciding the future development of an area. Most part of the World would see the local government playing an important role of mapping out the development trend and direction. Only when it comes to the issues of cross border affair, then an inter-regional or cities agency involvement would come in handy. This is logical as the local government being the governance system closet to the grassroot is supposedly knew what best for the their area. However, with the advancement of ICT and globalisation in which flowing of information, capital, investment and even human resources are so mobile and freely, this analogy might not be able to apply in full. On top of that the effect of climate change which is borderless compounded the need for closer cooperation and understanding of different agencies at various level.

In the case of Malaysia, under the provision of Act 172, the local authority is the local planning authority, and rightly so. However, when it comes to making decision on development direction and projects esepcially the mega project, it is always the case of refering to the government higher up, that is the State Government for guidance. In some States, even the application is considered at the State level before any advice to pass down to the local authority to consider as a guide. A guide? Well, it normally carries through without questions.

Can the State Government overrule decision on planning permission application made by the local planning authority? Obviously the answer is NO because that is the channel of Planning Appeal Board. Thereby the question of State Government approved a project after the project has been rejected by the local planning authority should not arise at all. If the State Government has different opinion, it can always go back to the procedure of issueing directive for the local planning authority to abide to the directive and guidelines, I presume.