FT minister clarifies ‘no more public hearings’ statement for new KL developments

KUALA LUMPUR, May 28 — Khalid Abdul Samad today explained an earlier statement regarding public hearings for new developments in the national capital following in the wake of confusion over his reported remarks.

Seeking to clear the air, he clarified that his reported remark that no more public hearings would be held was specific to one case.

“We are now undertaking the process to complete the Kuala Lumpur 2020-2040 plan and it is expected to be gazetted at the end of 2020.

“During this period, any development that is to be done in Kuala Lumpur, which follows the plan accordingly, does not need to conduct a public hearing session,” Khalid said in a statement.

He explained that this is because public hearings have already been conducted before the KL 2020-2040 plan was gazetted.

If a development is not in accordance to the plan, then a public hearing must be conducted, the minister said.

He added that studies on the particular project’s Traffic Impact Assessment (TIA) and Social Impact Assessment (SIA) must be presented during the hearing as it is different from the KL 2020-2040 plan.

“For the case of the KL 2020 plan which was gazetted on October 2018, it is a different case because public hearings were held in 2012 but it was not gazetted after that,” Khalid said.

He said that situations where a plan is not yet gazetted, Rule 5 of the Federal Territory Planning Act 1982 is applied, which enables public participation in city-planning.

“Changes were made to the plan, which was different from what was shown in 2012 according to public hearing under this Rule 5. According to Rule 5, TIA and SIA do not have to be presented during public hearings,” he said.

He stressed that any development that is done without a gazetted plan must follow Rule 5; however, after the plan is gazetted, then Rule 5 no longer applies to the project.

Khalid issued the clarification after national news agency Bernama’s report citing the minister was carried by several news outlets, including Malay Mail, earlier this morning.

The minister said his reported remarks in the article did not represent what he said during a news conference on the matter yesterday.