Cheong Yew Sheng, the lawyer for the couple, said the Penang State Appeals Board has set Sept 10 for negotiations between the couple and PDC Properties following the couple’s application for a stay on the project pending their appeal to revoke planning permission.

The negotiations will be on the terms and extent of the stay, and whether it will be limited to a stretch of the heritage homes in Jalan Chow Thye, or the entire project.

“My clients wanted the entire project to be stayed pending the disposal of their appeal,” he said.

British-German couple Louise Goss-Custard and Thomas Schmidt, who own a near-century old Peranakan mansion there, filed an appeal to the board in October last year to revoke the planning permission granted by the city council.

They said the project would erase a century’s worth of heritage value in the area.

The project was given planning approval in March last year. It comprises a 16 storey tower block of 138 office suites and a 21-storey tower of 361 condominium apartments, on a shared six-storey podium.

The city council and the Penang Development Corporation, which owns PDC Properties, have objected to the couple’s appeal, saying the couple did not file their appeal on time and that heritage preservation steps were already taken into account in the planning approval.

PDC Properties said the site of the planned development was outside the Unesco core or buffer zones. It contended that a complete halt of the entire project would be unfair to the developer as millions of ringgit has already been spent.

Cheong also said that his clients doubted that the eight heritage buildings could be relocated without being damaged.

When contacted, PDC Properties’ lawyer N Murelidaran said the firm “never intended to tear down the eight buildings”, adding that both sides are only discussing a limited stay pending an early hearing and “are not conceding anything on the merits”.

He said the plan is to relocate the eight units “through expert methods” and that “tearing down is not part of the council’s approved condition’s” for those buildings.