KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 28 — One short whoosh of relief was all residents spared after Putrajaya caved in yesterday to public pressure and temporarily shelved Kuala Lumpur City Hall’s (DBKL) proposed property tax hike.

With their next breath, the city residents made clear their vexation with the government was far from over, and promised to fight tooth and nail to cut down the assessment rates on their properties to what they constitute to be a more reasonable level.

William Chan, chairman of Taman Desa Residents Association, described the deferment as “trial and error”, and urged DBKL and the government “to think through properly before they impose anything, before they decide to increase” the assessment rate.

“I’m happy to hear of the extension until March, but I’m happier if they can consider people’s unhappiness,” he told The Malay Mail Online last night.

Chan pointed out that some Kuala Lumpur residents do not rent out their properties and should not be paying high taxes based on the rental value assessed.

He said the hike was “not fair, unrealistic and illogical”, and claimed DBKL to be the only body imposing such heavy assessment rates in the whole country.

Chan said property owners would have been happy to pay the annual tax if it was hiked to 20 or 30 per cent, compared to the whopping 200 to 300 per cent in some instances as stated in DBKL’s recent notices.

While agreeing that a big budget is needed to maintain the gleam in the city of glass-and-concrete towers interspersed with leafy gardens, Chan said the funds should not be procured by burdening the public, also asking DBKL to justify how it would spend the extra cash.

“By having so much money, what are you going to improve?” he asked.

When contacted, Wong See Tin said the announcement was “good news” as the complaint period was now at least being stretched from December 17 to March next year, allowing residents more time to voice their objections against the rate hike.

“We OUG RA welcome the decision, at least give the people longer time to give protest forms,” the OUG Residents Association chairman said, saying that he will continue to encourage residents to submit their protest forms to DBKL.

“If the assessment increased by 10 per cent to 20 per cent, we will accept. Not 100 to 200 per cent increase, it’s too much,” he said.

Ng Kok Piew, chairman of the Taman Bukit Maluri Residents Association, also welcomed the announcement, but noted that the assessment hike was merely being postponed and not withdrawn.

“Of course we welcome the government’s gesture to listen to residents, but this is “tangguh” (postpone), what will happen after that? We are still not convinced that the increase is justifiable,” he said, saying that the residents’ ultimate goal was to get the assessment hike scrapped.

Ng said Kepong residents were in protest of the rate of the assessment hike and not the date of its implementation, saying that they would continue objecting after March 2014 if the issue was not resolved by then.

“Our focus is very clear, the level of increase. So until that is reasonably resolved, we will still protest,” Ng said, with the 3,000-odd houses in his association belonging to a mixed-income neighbourhood.

Yesterday, Deputy Federal Territories Minister Loga Bala Mohan told Parliament that the assessment adjustment plan has been put on hold “indefinitely” while the feedback period that was to end next month, has been extended to March 2014.

The announcement came after leaders from Umno’s Federal Territories division yesterday proposed a 10 per cent cap on assessment hikes for low- and medium-cost housing in the city.

The proposed increase in assessment rates had left the public up in arms over the past few weeks, after homeowners received notices from the local authority informing them of a hike of between 100 and 250 per cent to their existing annual rates.

Opposition lawmakers, especially those from the Federal Territories, had demanded that Federal Territories Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor rescind the notices until City Hall justifies the need for such a large hike.

Officials from the ministry and City Hall had explained that the hike was necessary to raise funds to cover the cost of improving services provided by the local authority, while also considering the fact that this would be the first hike after 21 years.