Residents claim MBPJ did not follow ‘its own guidelines’ when approving project

• Residents living in the southern part of Bandar Utama claimed that the traffic impact assessment report for the 23-storey commercial development was “based on inaccurate data”.

PETALING JAYA (Sept 23): Some residents have claimed that Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) did not comply “with its own guidelines” when granting approval for a project located along Lebuh Bandar Utama (BU) near Sprint Expressway.

According to a report by The Star, the residents living in the southern part of Bandar Utama also claimed that the traffic impact assessment (TIA) report for the 23-storey commercial development was “based on inaccurate data”.

BU11 Gembiria Residents Association (RA) committee member Loh Chee Wey told the daily that the project’s approved plot ratio of 1:6.8 goes against MBPJ’s Petaling Jaya Local Plan (RTPJ) 2, Amendment 3 which “states that the permitted plot ratio should be half of the maximum 1:8 for transit-oriented development”.

“The TIA report submitted by the developer shows that the level of service for Junction J1 (the intersection connecting Lebuh Bandar Utama and Sprint Expressway) is already rated level F (worst quality) for both morning and evening traffic,” Loh explained.

BU11 Hatiria RA chairman M K Tan also questioned traffic data collected for the TIA report.

“Apparently it was conducted during the first week of September 2019, which had a shorter work week because of public holidays.

“So it is unlikely to represent the actual traffic situation,” Tan told The Star.

He added that the residents also opposed MBPJ’s proposals to close the right-hand turn into Jalan BU11/1 from Lebuh BU and instal traffic lights with U-turn at the Jalan BU11/7 and Lebuh BU junction.

“There are three existing access points to BU11. Removing the right-hand turn will restrict residents to just two access points.

“This will create a bottleneck as there are over 1,000 houses in BU11 Gembiria and Hatiria.

“There are also vehicles going to a school, kindergartens and childcare centres in BU11,” said Tan.

He said the traffic situation on Lebuh BU was already bad and MBPJ’s proposals “would make matters worse”.