PAM’s response to ‘Planners say rising waters due to uncontrolled development’ article — Mohd Zulhemlee An

NOVEMBER 18 — I am referring to your report, “Planners say rising waters due to uncontrolled development” published on 17 November 2016 (in Malay Mail), and I am compelled to express Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia’s concerns on the misperception related to constructions and developments.

We are saddened with the flash flood in Puchong on Tuesday which has affected many people and damaged the cars trapped in the flood. The heavy downpour of rain for several hours had caused the flash flood. The residents at the affected area also expressed frustration over the flash flood and worry that the flood will occur again during heavy downpour.

Generally, flooding will occur when the drainage system is no longer able to cope with the volume of rain water in the particular area. The drainage system involves a complex network of drains starting with the perimetre drain at buildings to the roadside drain which will then be connected to the main drain or monsoon drain before finally being discharged into the existing drain. If at any point along the network of drain the drain capacity could not cope with the volume of water or rainwater, or the flow of the water in the drain is not fast enough to discharge the excess water into the final point, flooding can occur.

When any proposed development is submitted for approval to the local authority, the main infrastructure of the area such as road networks, drainage system, water supply and electrical supply will be assessed to determine if the existing infrastructure will be able to cater for the additional demands from the new development.

There are several guidelines introduced by the local authorities such as the plot ratio for commercial development and density for residential development which are closely related to the capacity of existing infrastructures in the particular areas. Upgrading works to the infrastructures will need to be carried out if the existing ones are not adequate. When the existing infrastructures have reached the maximum limit, new developments should no longer be allowed in the respective areas.

Roads and parking areas comprise about 35per cent of the land surface of development areas. The hard surfaces of roads and parking areas resulted in large volume of water run-off being discharged fast into the drainage system, because the water is not absorbed into the grounds. The drainage department has made it mandatory to all developments to have retention ponds to slow down the flow of excess water and to reduce the volume of water that goes into the final drain. In developed countries such as the United States, the amount of hard surfaces of open car parks is reduced by the introduction of soft landscaping areas which can also beautify the open car parks.

Other than that, the local authorities must ensure that the drainage system is  constantly maintained so that there will not be any blockages from either rubbish thrown into the drains or broken drains which could prevent the flow of excess water, and to prevent the reduction of the capacity of the drain due to silting.

There is no doubt that rapid development of numerous construction projects may be one of the contributing factors to the flooding, but to stop development is not the solution. The Tuesday flash flood is not the last flooding problem we shall see. There will be others as we are developing our nation. There are many more works in the pipeline, even our MRT plans have future phases and we are looking at more construction projects for the next 20 to 50 years.

It has been long overdue for us to look at our infrastructure master plan and to plan it for 20 to 50 years of development planning instead of “piece-meal” development based on project owners’ proposals.

It is crucial that the infrastructure master plan is developed with considerations for future development growth and to be implemented in parallel with rapidly growing development projects. More focus is required in developing infrastructure master plan, macro planning of socio geographic and economic planning of land use, considering projected population and urban growth. This shall give us a better guide in reviewing the national physical plan, state structure plans, local plans and district plans. With the establishment of these plans, the infrastructure development master plan can be more accurately implemented in accordance to the population and urban growth.

Therefore, the authorities should shift their focus on a wider and more structured development planning instead of micro-managing developments in pieces. A properly prepared local plan that take into account the projected population growth and infra-structure needs would have avoided disasters related to infrastructure inadequacies. With the gazetted infra-structure master plan in place, projects can continue to be developed based on the thoroughly studied infra-structure master plan. Hence, it will not just mitigate the flash flood issues; instead, it will also allow infrastructure and utility services to be developed in line with development projects.

This is probably the early answer to the future issues on water supply, sewerage system, energy supply, communication network, traffic system and drainage.

Mohd Zulhemlee An is the president of Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia (PAM).

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.