Penang board chides council for appealing against condo project, orders it to pay RM35,000
The RM209mil payment already made to the Penang Tunnel Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) company for the consultancy studies for the 3 roads consist of two plots of state land.
The first payment was a plot of seaside state land valued at RM135mil and was transferred to the SPV on 17th February 2015.
The SPV then went into a joint-venture with a listed company to develop this land on a 60-40 basis with the SPV holding a 40% interest. The Joint venture (JV) is for the development of a luxury condominium project comprising of two blocks of 40 storey buildings totaling 572 condo units where each unit is priced at RM1,200psf and above.
The gross development value of this condo project has been reported to be RM800 million.
The JV then applied to the Majlis Bandaraya Pulau Pinang (MBPP) for planning permission on 9th March 2015. The planning division of MBPP then gave its approval within 8 days even though it's standard approval period (Piagam) is 108 days.
It was calculated that the approval given had also raised the development density to 156 units per acre from the 30 units per acre limit that had previously been in effect in that area several years ago.
Checks at the luxury condo project site showed that construction has already started - despite none of the 3 highways having started construction - a delay of at least 3 1/2 years.
The condo project is now facing some delays as more than a 100 residents in the area had complained that the MBPP is wrong in approving such a high density project in that residential area.
The residents had managed to get a stay order from the Penang State Appeals Board who had ruled in their favour.
However, in a shock move the MBPP then appealed on behalf of the developers against their own Penang State Appeals board. The MBPP lost the appeal in April 2016 and was fined RM35,000 costs to the appeals board and the residents.
It was an embarrassing situation where the state government via the MBPP had appealed on behalf of a developer against the state government's own appeal board and lost. Essentially the state government had to pay the state government for costs.
The question is why is the Penang Govt so protective of this particular developer?
Eric See-To.
