Penang’s 10-year masterplan has errors, lacks details, says heritage body

The Art Deco design homes in the Victoria Green and Chow Thye area were left out, presumably due to a future high-rise project by a state company.

GEORGE TOWN: A proposed 10-year development master plan for Penang island has errors and lacks the details one would expect, according to the Penang Heritage Trust (PHT).

PHT vice-president Khoo Salma Nasution said without these details, the plan ran the risk of harming the island’s heritage.

She said the document, referred to as the 2030 draft local plan, also ignored the need to keep skylines and mountain views unobstructed by limiting development in certain stretches, citing the vista of the Penang Hill range when one drove from Jalan Dato Keramat towards Air Itam.

“Visual corridors should be considered a high priority in the plan. But the planners have missed protecting the Penang Hill view, among other vistas,” she told FMT on the sidelines of PHT’s 2030 Penang island draft local plan workshop.

Khoo said the city council and its hired planning consultants appeared to have skirted the important aspect of protecting heritage buildings outside the George Town World Heritage Site.

Khoo Salma Nasution said the most glaring omission in the plan was the inventory of heritage buildings, where only 1,714 such examples were listed when it should be as many as 3,977.

“There is a need to re-study the whole plan as it is missing many things that must be included in such a local plan,” she said.

Khoo said the most glaring omission in the plan was the recognised inventory of heritage buildings, where only 1,714 such examples were listed, when it should be as many as 3,977, based on the George Town special area plan (SAP).

She said notable landmarks – such as the Penang Free School, Rex Cinema, College-General Catholic seminary, Masjid Maqbul, and the Wadda Gurdwara Sahib – were also missing from the heritage list.

The Art Deco suburb of Irrawady Road, Chow Thye Road and its surroundings were also left out, Khoo said, adding that this was likely in anticipation of an earlier reported mega high-rise project by a state company.

Khoo said there were also glaring errors in the plan such as the Queen Victoria Jubilee Clock Tower named as “Menara Jam Queen Elizabeth” and Dewan Mahatma Gandhi spelt as “Dewah Mahatma Ghani”.

Meanwhile, PHT president Lim Gaik Siang said a major disparity was shown in the volume of the draft island plan compared with smaller plans.

She said compared with the George Town SAP, a town planning document for the World Heritage Site, which had 808 pages covering an area of 2.6 sq km, the 2030 local plan was only 616 pages covering 295 sq km – which is the whole island.

She said a 1994 census showed there were 12,543 pre-war heritage buildings in the greater George Town area which spanned from Bagan Jermal to the Green Lane area.

“Under the George Town SAP, there are around 4,000 heritage properties listed in the World Heritage Site. There are likely about 8,000 over pre-war heritage buildings in the rest of the island,” she said. - FMT