PUTRAJAYA, May 30 — Public hearings for the gazetted KL City Plan 2020-2040 can only be done if changes are made to the original document, said Federal Territories Minister Khalid Abdul Samad.

He said if one were to conduct development along the lines of the original plan, then the public hearing would be unnecessary.

"This is because the public hearing process would have been done much earlier, in the stages before the document was finally gazetted,” Khalid said during a press conference at the ministry’s complex.

He added the earlier public hearings would have been more comprehensive than any that might happen in the future over the plan, as they included the Traffic Impact Assessment and Social Impact Assessment.

Meanwhile, Khalid said the final paper on the Taman Rimba Kiara issue is being finalised and will be presented to the Cabinet soon.

"As the Development Order (DO) has already been issued out, this means the developer can technically proceed with the project as they see fit.

"Although the DO was approved by Kuala Lumpur City Hall before, now it can only negotiate with the developer to scale down the project,” he said, adding negotiations have already been done.

Earlier in April it was reported that the Taman Rimba Kiara’s developers agreed to reduce the project’s scale from 3.2 hectares of open space to 1.6 hectares.