Pulau Tikus assemblyman Yap Soo Huey said 12 houses in particular at the Hong Seng Estate had been declared as “high risk” and the residents ordered to vacate.
“State officials and technical consultants have been monitoring the slope several times daily and we found that the land underneath the house keeps moving forward.
“We found that two homes were at risk of collapsing completely. We have asked them to move out immediately,” she said at a press conference at Balai Rakyat Hong Seng today.
Present was Kebun Bunga assembly member Cheah Kah Peng, whose constituents are also at the estate.
On Nov 7, several families of the estate were awakened by a loud crash when the porch of a house collapsed into the back of houses below. No one was hurt.
Most of the residents here are tenants of the Hong Seng Estate Trustees, who charge a small rent of RM2 to RM40, depending on the size of the homes at the “favela”.
Yap said the affected slopes were repaired by Penang government engineers and the work was completed on Nov 21.
“Work was carried out to stabilise the slopes and minimise ground movement.
“A 60ft concrete bund was built at the site, but engineers say that would not fix the problem permanently,” she said.
Yap said for a permanent solution, nearly all 650 homes at the estate need to be vacated.
“But how are we to tell them to leave as these are homes built by their ancestors?
“This is privately-owned land,”she said.
Yap said the Penang Island City Council had since issued notices to the 12 homes in a risky situation, two of them said to be in “high danger”.
The eight occupants of the two homes have since left. Yap said she helped one of the families to move out.
She said the family of five was now renting a house within the estate.
“I helped them with their first month’s rent and deposit for the house as they were relying on a single person’s income .
“As for the rest affected, we have offered them places to be priority applicants for affordable housing near Mount Erskine. They can move in by the first quarter of next year,” Yap said.
A resident staying directly below the affected slopes felt the erosion could be due to illegal farming activity.
Elizabeth Soosai, 49, said a neighbour had planted vegetables at a slope below her porch.
“When we started to make noise about the illegal farming, they quickly cleared the vegetation but we had the landslide the next day.
“We can only guess but did this trigger the landslide?”
The estate is owned by a board of trustees of the late Oh Chong Leng appointed by the courts.
Hong Seng Estate is named after the original owner of the estate. Hong Seng had reportedly bought the 18.2ha land in 1819 to turn it into a burial ground for his family.
But in 1896, the trustees of the estate allowed people to build their homes there.
In an interview with The Star Online on Sept 19, 2015, former state executive councillor Khor Gark Kim had said the trustees wanted him to redevelop the area since he was former Tanjung Bungah assemblyman.
Khor told the daily that Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng was briefed on the plan before.
“The project will have low medium-cost (30%), affordable (25%) and open-value (45%) housing,” he had told the daily.