Longhouse residents urge PM to ensure Taman Rimba Kiara project proceeds

Residents of the Taman Tun Dr Ismail (TTDI) longhouses have urged Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad to ensure the scaled-down Taman Rimba Kiara development proceeds as planned.

This is so that the affordable apartments promised to them will finally be built.

Led by Bukit Kiara Public Housing Residents Association chairperson V Sunderam, a group of about 50 residents travelled to the Prime Minister’s Office in Putrajaya today to deliver a memorandum containing their requests to the prime minister.

“We want the project. They promised us back in 2015 that they will build us the apartments... they have scaled it down, we accept it.

“But still, some people in the TTDI Residents Association (TTDI RA) are blocking the project. So we want to take this to the cabinet and solve it,” Sunderam (below) told the media afterwards.

The association is one of the two residents' associations claiming to represent the longhouse residents.

The memorandum was received by Mahathir’s special aide Suwari Suno and de factoNational Unity Minister P Waythamoorthy’s private secretary V Mathavan.

In the document, the association urged the prime minister to honour the existing master resettlement agreement (MRA) between the residents and government foundation Yayasan Wilayah.

The foundation is developing the project with Memang Perkasa Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of developer Malton Bhd.

Under the MRA, 98 first-generation TTDI longhouse families are to be given an 850-square foot affordable apartment for free, while second-generation families are to be able to purchase the units at half-price (RM175,000).

The association previously delivered a similar memorandum to the prime minister in September 2018.

Marginalised by the 'rich and famous'

Today, the association criticised the TTDI RA for ignoring the welfare of the longhouse residents in their persistent refusal to accept the project.

“We had a light of hope (sic) when the then (BN) cabinet approved the affordable apartments... each longhouse family’s social and economic standing was supposed to have been uplifted.

“But now, we are stuck due to the ongoing prejudicial objections raised by the rich and famous RA and management bodies of TTDI supported by other powerful groups (that are) sidelining the minority - marginalised, downtrodden longhouse settlers like us,” the memorandum states.

The TTDI longhouses were built back in 1982 as a temporary five-year resettlement programme for former workers of the Bukit Kiara rubber estate when the area was developed.

Thirty-seven years on, the residents continue to wait for the proper houses promised to them by the KL City Hall (DBKL).

In 2017, DBKL, under the former BN government, allowed the RM3 billion Taman Rimba Kiara project to proceed.

Comprising eight blocks of 50-storey luxury condominiums and one block of affordable apartments, it would have taken up 4.9 hectares - almost half of the 10.1-hectare Taman Rimba Kiara.

TTDI residents (above) vehemently opposed the project, holding demonstrations and taking the government to court.

Under the Pakatan Harapan administration, Federal Territories Minister Khalid Abdul Samad brokered what he termed a “win-win deal” to allow the project to proceed, but at a reduced size of 3.2 hectares.

Khalid insisted that he had taken into account everyone’s interests, as well as saved the government from legal action and having to pay RM150 million in compensation if the project were to be cancelled.

However, TTDI RA rejected the scaled-down proposal as it maintained that the park must not be affected.  - Mkini