It was a Black Monday for Tanjung Bungah residents who came home from work in the evening, only to be greeted with loud cacophonous noises.

These "excessive noises" coming from the site where a luxurious condominium is being built are not music to the ears of residents, who have come to despise the massive development project unfolding around them.

Unable to bear the deafening din, the residents bombarded the Penang Island Municipal Council (MPPP) with a series of complaints, accusing the latter of being "ignorant" about the activities of the developer.

NONE JMB Straits Regency Residents Association secretary Lee Kim Seong said the machines at the construction site were running at "full throttle and the noise level was deafening", even after he got home from work at 8.30pm.

Carrying a camera, Lee went to the site to take pictures of the workers and their machines but they immediately stopped work when they spotted the flash.

"The level of respect the developer and contractors have for the MPPP amazes me," said Lee.

"After having only resumed work for about two weeks or so (after a stop-work order), they have resorted to this," he added.

"What a total disregard for the law and disrespect for those who are tasked to enforce it."

The strained ties between the MPPP and the Tanjung Bungah residents seems far from being over due to the ongoing "environmental disasters" caused by developer that the residents face, including rocks hitting rooftops and floods turning roads and the beach off it into a muddy orange.

Incessant protests from the residents finally saw the police and MPPP issuing a stop-work order to the developer last month, until it complied with safety guidelines issued by the council.

Residents, developers lock horns over hillside projects

The problems are not restricted to Tanjung Bungah alone. Residents in other areas in Penang and developers continue to lock horns, leaving the state authorities in a dilemma over hillside development projects around the island.

On one hand, vocal NGOs and residents want the state to halt these projects while on the other, the state continues to plead for understanding as reversing the plans may cost Penangites billions of ringgit in terms of legal compensation to the affected developers.

Meanwhile, the council's acting director for buildings, Noorhanis Noordin, in his response to the residents' grievances told them that a warning letter had been issued to the architect and developer over the Monday incident.

Noorhanis said in an email to the residents that the MPPP usually allowed extra work time for developers, as long as it did not cause a disturbance to the neighbourhood.

These activities included ‘light work', for example, activities carried out inside buildings which do not use machines and do not emit noises," she said..

"Work that needs to be done urgently and involves mitigation would be discussed in council meetings for consideration and approval.

Explain 'light work' council told

"For work related to engineering and earthworks, the Engineering Department will be notified for further action," she added.

But despite Noorhanis' immediate response, another residents' group in Tanjung Bungah is still unhappy with the allowance given to the developer to carry out "light work" until 10pm daily.

"This is ridiculous. The MPPP needs to explain what‘light work' is; what is the decibel level allowed and what are the equipment allowed during light work," Tanjung Bungah Residents Association chairperson George Aeria said.

"We are against this allowance for so called ‘light work' and urge the MPPP to cancel it until they can explain what it is all about," said Aeria, who has been intensely vocal in taking MPPP to task for not monitoring developers as effectively as it should.

"We suggest that ‘light work' be clerical pen pushing, something similar to MPPP's work," added a very upset Aeria.