Public and Private

Layman will be able to tell us public area means places or facilities that are commonly owned or used by everyone regardless of their status and background and private area means it is exclusively used or owned by somebody who might have claimed the ownership by way of accreditation by the authority. For example, the house owner by virtue of having the land title to show that he is the rightful owner and hence is exclusively for his own possession. Like wise, public space must be a place or facilities that allowed public access or use by way of authorities declaration or owners' permission. For example, the local authority might have gazette the time for parks to be opened to public subjected that certain rules are observed. The shopping complex management might have allowed public access for visitation provided some code of conducts are followed.

What about five foot corridor in front of the shops? This is privately owned public access. Although it is owned by the building owner and it is his responsibility of maintaining it in good order, he has no right to deny public access simply because the corridor has been declared a public corridor with consent from the owner when he submitted his building plan for authority's approval. This allows the local authorities to enforce order and law against those caused obstruction onto the pathway. If similar analogy applied for the shopping complexes or public park in the vicinity of commercial centres or industrial park, what will happen? Although highly hypothetical, we should not discount the possibility of it will happen eventually. Well, we have to think deep into it.

For landed residential property development in which subdivision of land is required, the local planning authority will normally ask the land for public facilities be surrendered. But the question is why this is not done so for multi storeys residential buildings? Some argue that for this type of development, it is governed by the Strata Titles Act in which management corporation is to be established to look after the maintenance of the common properties within the guarded area. Well, presently the property owners not only paying higher assessment rate but also folk out more money for service charge and sinking fund. If the local planning authority has required that public space be surrendered, then I presume it will reduce the service fee. Some might argue that requesting the developer to surrender the public space in a strata property will affect the viability and marketability of the project. Well, owners might have thought about exclusive use of the facilities, but if the service cost is extremely high, they might have thinking of not maintaining the facilities even though it means of sharing the facilities with others. However, the question of management capacity and competency of local authority will arise. Simply many have no confidence of local authority to impose this condition of surrendering the public space and for their upkeep.

The argument can go on and on and a solution will not on sight the soonest.

Whatever the decision made, my concern is always on principle of fairness and equality. We can set a precedence, but that precedence should be known to the public in advance and further to apply in all qualified projects regardless of area, status and project proponents.

Sustainable City Award

Judges for the Malaysian Sustainable City Award competition visited Petaling Jaya on 24 and 25th June 2010. The purpose was to evaluate the sustainability performance of the Council based on reports and documents submitted. MBPJ together with MPSJ, MP Miri and MB Sibu have been shortlisted this annual award organised by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and Ministry of Housing and Local Government. Apart from briefing, the judges were brought for tour to Beautiful Gates Disabled Centre, SS2 Town Centre, Bukit Gasing Hill, Sungai Way River and SK Sri Kelana, some of the project site under the auspicious of Local Agenda 21 Petaling Jaya initiative.

I believe the judges must be impressed with enthusiasm shown by us as well as our partners in service. One of the significant point to make is the presence and involvement of stakeholders in all projects. I am sure no other areas have seen such dynamism and diverse groups of working together for the betterment of city environment. It is enlightening to see that bottom up rather than top down approach has been widely applied here. The programmes themselves are wide range, from social, neighbourhood, economy to environment at community or city level. Importantly also the sustainability of stakeholders, the most difficult element when it comes to the community development.

New Adventure

Since 17/4/2010, I have been entrusted to oversee the operation of One Stop Secretariat of MBPJ. It is an exciting journey for me in furthering the purpose of town and country planning as well as incorporating the principles of sustainable development in actual physical form with impacts on social and economic development.

For the past 2 months and plus, I have been keeping myself busy in familiarising the rules and regulations as well as the procedures. Surprising me, it took some time to right my frame of thoughts on the existing practice with those provided for. For example, I have thought that with local plan in place, it must be very easy of checking the compliance of planning standard and guidelines, but to my surprise many are still fell back to the old practices of "enquiring" the best deal even though it was stated clearly allowable intensity of development in the local plan.

Another excitement was the Council decision in allowing views of public been considered by way of public views hearing session rather than shut the door down completely even though it is allowed for areas within the local plan coverage. Although it is not a mandatory requirement for Council to notify and consult adjoining land owners on proposed development within the vicinity if a local plan has been gazetted, The Council decided to hear them out. I think it is Local Agenda 21 in practice.

Yet another interesting turn of event was the decision of Council to declassify the condition of planning permission for a project recently. This must be the first time that a local planning authority in Malaysia has made known to the public the details of planning approval. I believe in the spirit of good governance and freedom of information, this must be a foresight and way forward, and break through for local governance.

Well, I believe more will to come.

True Partnership

At the end of the day, it is about partnership and collaboration. While many individual or organisations have done an excellent job or performed well in discharging their duties, many have not gone beyond their usual routine simply because of lacking capacity or even ideas or complacency. Hence, smart partnership with others might have changed this limitation of breaking through.


Having said this, at time due to egoism and lack of communication, sincere, workable and equal partnership cannot be formed. Two organisations having strong characteristic and opinion in leadership are always having difficulty to sit down and create a consensus even on common and petty issue.


For partnership to forge ahead and bear result, firstly I think both the partners need to open their mind set and go back to the equal footing first. It is no point of influencing others with own opinion without considering other sides, too are having their priority. However, in most cases, this is what happened at the community level. Negotiation and power play are real at the neighbourhood level. Everyone is trying to impose his/her value onto others and if both are strong in their opinion, then conflict might have occurred. Thereby, agreed to disagree is becoming important and critical.

Partnership is a phrase that everyone is trying to use but it is utmost difficult to achieve if equality and equity is taking into consideration. Leadership that embrace equal and smart partnership is likely the one to achieve desire result and, hence the respect from others.

Well, looking nowadays that people are kept accusing others of foul play and dissatisfaction on issues and proposal brought forward, I am wondered that such thing of smart partnership has been achieved.

Community Service

29th April until 2nd May saw the gathering of 1,400 like-minded people at the LIONS Multiple District 308 Convention in Suntec, Singapore. It is an annual event for electing new leadership and charting the programmes for next fiscal year. It is also a fellowship session to chit chat and share experiences with others on serving the community. As the largest service club in the World, LIONS have been known for their tireless and selfless efforts in serving the underprivileged and unfortunates. Thereby, the gathering also saw those excel in works being recognised and rewarded.

Community service especially on voluntary basis is never an easy task. It is not that difficult to extend our helping hand to the needy, either in cash, kind or passion. The most challenging part to me is getting members to continue and to sustain their energy to serve long term programmes. While many have started an activity well, the activity might have only one off effect and short term gain to the beneficiaries. Some social workers have spoken against the one off activity at welfare homes that will disturb the daily routine of the inmates. It is not uncommon for the inmates to return to their normal life after many days because of excitement created during visits by volunteers. Thereby, it is advisable to have long term project with the welfare homes and it is important too to have schedule visits or activities rather than in piece meal during the festive seasons only.

In order to do so, sustainability in terms of energy, capacity and enthusiasm is critical. While many Lions are passionate of serving, many might have difficulty to stay put longer with a project. Many community services failed because lack of sustaining power or continuity. So, it is important to overcome this challenge by deploying better strategies. Perhaps to synergies and to pool different resources from various stakeholders together for a particular project. It is about smart partnership and sharing of resources.

Innovation in Recycling

Since the inception of Recycling Campaign in Malaysia, we have been told about the 3 colours bins for different type of wastes. However, unless we used to recycled or else we always forget about which colour bin for which type of waste. Having said this, this prototype square bin has managed to implant onto mind of every environmental concerned people especially the children. We are so used to seeing these bins around but time goes by, many people has forgotten about the excitement associated to recycling efforts. We take things for granted that the bins should be there but cannot figure out the reason of having them there permanently.

Definitely some innovation should have been created to further enhance the programme. I was excited to see these recycling bins at the Changi Airport last week en route to my Lions Convention. The bins are designed with specific shape and colours. I think it is easy for many to throw their waste without second thought. I am wondering why can't we have the same innovation?

CSR at Work

I learned a lesson about corporate social responsibility last Thursday. While many corporates have carried on with the CSR programmes for PR purpose and to fulfill minimum requirement on good governance, very few have done with thoughtful and thorough planning. AkzoNobel company proved me wrong.

I have discussion with them over the suggestion of partnering in the River Rehabilitation programme. We are thinking of encouraging community based organisations to adopt the drains and rivers fronting their neighbourhood. The Adoption Scheme involves keeping an eye on the drains, preventing pollutants from the drains, cleanliness and beautification and other activities with community participation. One of the interesting activities was painting mural on the surface of monsoon drain. That's why a meeting was set up with representatives from AkzoNobel to discuss their involvement and contribution.

They mentioned to me the many CSR programmes they have done worldwide. One of the principle strike me the most is their pre-evaluation process in deciding project participation. For example, in order for them to help in the drain adoption project, they will have to send in their Safety, Health and Environmental team for further evaluation. And if they decided to participate, it is not only on kind contribution, but engaging the local to work together with their staff. They will dispatch professional painters to guide local on the proper painting works or even to do in entirely on their own. According to them, they have the duty to educate people on colour and methods of sustaining the painting work. I personally impress with this philosophy of educating people by sharing their experience and know how.