Largest land fraud?

The Sun 
by R. Nadeswaran

PETALING JAYA (July 2, 2012): The changes seemed minor – some colours and shades switched, and a few words altered. But the implications to the PJ Draft Local Plan Two (RTPJ 2) were staggering as the value of land was increased by several hundred million ringgit, making millionaires of those engaged in such malpractice.

In what has been described as the largest land fraud in the country, Petaling Jaya City Councillor Derek Fernandez charged that irresponsible people within the council changed the plan to cause substantial increase in the land value.

Using the controversial change in status of the PKNS field in Kelana Jaya in the RTPJ2 as an example, he said as recreational land, it would fetch about RM20 per square foot but as commercial land, it can go as much as RM500 psf – a 25-fold increase.

The local plan, he said, was amended unlawfully twice, with some 220 unauthorised and illegal amendments involving 40 plots of land including the PKNS field.

Most of the amendments had been done in complete violation of the law and hidden from the councillors who were “fed a steady diet of lies” at every meeting of the council’s One-Stop Centre which scrutinises applications for development.

In a lengthy submission to the Selangor Select Committee on Competency, Accountability and Transparency (Selcat) on Friday, Fernandez said there were three different versions of the local plans in existence which are purported to be legal and which carry the government gazette notification number.

“These amendments were done by people who knew about the procedures involved but yet chose to ignore them. The only valid local plan is the one assented to by the (Selangor) State Assembly and the law requires the MBPJ (PJ City Council) to publish (in the gazette) the assent and make it available for public inspection.

This means the other two plans ‘pretending’ that they have been assented by the State Assembly are false, deceptive and the perpetrators have committed a (criminal) offence,” Fernandez said.

He also raised four questions which he said Selcat – which had hearings for two days last week, and is set for another one on Thursday – should investigate:

 Who ordered MBPJ officers to go to the Selangor Valuation Department to carry out the illegal amendments with the intention of enhancing the value of the land for certain interests?

 How did the persons involved know how to amend the zoning of 40 plots of land unless the land owners or those who had interests in the said plots contacted the officers?

 Who gave the list of 220 amendments to be made?

 How did these owners get the land and how was the land converted and the titles issued which are inconsistent with the zoning under the local plan?

Outlining the methodology prescribed in the legislation, Fernandez in his submissions, said planning aims to provide sustainable development irrespective of the status of the land use.

In the event a proposal for re-zoning is made which is different from the title, the affected person can object and if his or her objections are dismissed by the state hearing committee and the local plan is assented to by the state authority, he can seek compensation. If, however he does not object, he is taken as having agreed with the zoning change.

This has a direct relation to the issue, yet, there were no objections before the local plan was gazetted.

Requesting Selcat to carry out further investigations, Fernandez said: “You will find that many plots of land are stolen from public open spaces, recreational land and land meant to be surrendered to the local authority for public purposes.

“Even land surrendered for public purposes by developers and not used for the purpose were stolen and later alienated to cronies, avoiding public hearings.

Magically, titles later appear for these plots and that is how the public is robbed. That is why the planning records are different for those lands.”

RTPJ2 became mired in controversy when documents referred to by the Selangor Town and Country Planning found the public field owned by PKNS was zoned as a recreational area, whilst the documents referred to by MBPJ indicated it was a commercial zone.