The residents’ association said the Kuala Lumpur mayor and Yayasan Wilayah Persekutuan (YWP) should demonstrate their willingness to abide by the decision and stop wasting public funds with more appeals.
On Jan 27, the Court of Appeal set aside the High Court’s order on Nov 28, 2018 to reject an appeal by TTDI residents to overturn the conditional planning permission and development order by Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL).
Noting that this decision had been widely hailed as a landmark ruling by the Malaysian Bar and other legal experts, the group said it should be accepted gracefully by the authorities.
“As KL residents, we object to even more resources being used by DBKL and/or YWP to appeal a decision which is already so clear and definitive in its handling of the legal issues,” it said in a statement.
“DBKL is a government agency and, as such, has a role to play to promote and safeguard the interests of the rakyat.
“And since this is a public interest initiative championed by the citizens of Kuala Lumpur and supported by the general public, we urge DBKL to perform that role and not to spend valuable resources challenging the will of the people.”
The group also stressed it was the representative body of “thousands of tax-paying and rate-paying KL residents” in the immediate vicinity of Taman Rimba Kiara and the longhouses.
They had appealed against the proposed development of the Taman Rimba Kiara project, consisting of a 29-storey apartment block with 350 units of affordable housing, as well as eight blocks of service apartments and eight storeys of parking facilities.
The project was to be undertaken by property developer Malton Bhd, through its subsidiary Memang Perkasa Sdn Bhd, and YWP, a foundation chaired by the federal territories minister.
The residents also called on the federal territories minister, as chairman of YWP, to focus on delivering affordable landed units as permanent housing for the Bukit Kiara longhouse families within the existing 1.6ha footprint of the longhouse area.
They also requested a meeting with the minister “at the soonest practicable time” to discuss the permanent housing plan for the longhouse families, as proposed previously by the TTDI residents’ association.