April 28, 2008 By DEBBIE CHAN
MOST of the residents of Kampung Pakar, Sg Besi, have been offered public housing at PPR Muhibbah in Puchong after a thorough investigation by Kuala Lumpur City Hall.
Some 83 households would be relocated to the Muhibbah flats while another six are awaiting pending appeals as they were not included in the census conducted during the floods last year.
“These six households were not affected by the floods and were not counted in the census done by City Hall then.
“We have appealed to the authority and hope that these six families will get a place in public housing as well,” Seputeh MP Theresa Kok said.
The rest of the squatter households have been disqualified from public housing as they were not families or were occupied by foreign workers.
The squatters were asked to leave their houses by June 17, 2008, to make way for the construction of new factories by the developer GSS Properties Sdn Bhd.
GSS Properties has offered to pay compensation to the squatters and the value of the compensation was made based on the sizes of the houses with payments ranging from RM2,000 to RM6,000 per family.
The squatters recently voiced their concerns that City Hall might not be able to provide the public housing units in time. They are also unsatisfied with the valuation of the compensation that seemed to be inconsistent.
“Some of the residents complained that the compensation values differed even when the houses were of the same size.
“I advised the residents that if they were not happy with the compensation value, they should get surveyors to measure their houses and provide some sort of documentation so that I could then talk to the developers,” Kok said.
Kok added that Kampung Pakar was a tough situation as some of the squatters were located on public land while some were on private land.
“At the meeting with the Federal Territories Ministry, we tried to figure out if the houses were on public land as City Hall procedures call for priority to be given to squatters on public land.
“However, at the moment, most of the squatters, regardless of the status, have been offered a place at the Muhibbah flats,” Kok said.
In a statement issued by the developer, it stated that it did not have any objections for the residents to tear down their own homes provided they cleaned up before or on the due date given.
The developer also stated that the compensation is purely an ex-gratia payment based on the size of the houses.
More than 95% of the squatters have signed the agreement to vacate and have agreed to move by the due date.
Kok also advised the squatters to take up the offer of public housing and said that the main priority for her is that everyone gets a home to live in. According to City Hall statistics, there are about 40,000 people with no proper homes in Kuala Lumpur.
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