The Penang state government cannot reverse its decision to approve four high-rise building projects in the George Town heritage zone due to legal repercussions.

The state government is legally bound to abide by the approvals, said Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng today.

lim guan eng "Otherwise we would face the risk of hefty legal suits for cancelling them," he told reporters after attending a dialogue session organised by the state heritage advisory panel in Komtar.

It was reported that the state government had approved four high-rise hotels, including a 23-storey building, in heritage zones on June 26. This was done 10 days before George Town was enlisted as an Unesco global heritage city.

Lim said the state planning committee had approved the four projects based on existing guidelines outlined by the previous Barisan Nasional administration.

"At the time, George Town was not declared as a heritage city, thus the new state government followed the existing planning guidelines. We were not aware about the new heritage guidelines," he said.

The new guidelines were among the conditions imposed by Unesco to the state authorities when application to enlist George Town as heritage city was made last August.

The previous government had submitted the guidelines, namely the heritage management plan, outlined in the dossier submitted to Unesco that achieved success in gaining World Heritage site status on July 7.

The current government has decided to make public the heritage management plan.

Under the guidelines, town planning in George Town must strictly adhere to Unesco's guidelines on heritage conservation and preservation.

Stringent guidelines

It is learnt that the local municipality drafted stringent new conservation guidelines prohibiting new buildings within the heritage zone from exceeding the height of 18m or about five-storeys.

Under existing local council guidelines, although George Town’s skyline is generally limited to five-storey buildings, the rule was subject to certain exceptions.

Lim was responding to a senior Unesco official’s warning that George Town stands to lose its heritage status due to its plans to have high-rise buildings.

Unesco regional adviser for Asia-Pacific, Richard Engelhardt noted that there was a scrambling to approve high-rise projects in George Town between the time the state government submitted its application for heritage listing in August 2007 and approved by Unesco this July.

In a related development, Lim reiterated his call on the federal government to set aside a RM200 million interest-free loan and RM5 million grant to preserve and promote George Town.

"George Town heritage city belongs not only to Penang but to all Malaysians and the world," he said.

The state government could only raise RM1 million to provide education and measures to preserve, protect and promote George Town as a world heritage site.