PKR today questioned Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) over the execution of its RM408 million project to provide multi-storey parking lots in public housing areas.

The party's communications director Fahmi Fadzil said the multi-storey parking lots are sorely needed in these areas, but poor planning has led it to aggravate the very problem that the project is meant to solve.

At a press conference at the Desa Rejang public housing area (PA), Fahmi said the local residents’ association had proposed for a plot of land to be used as a temporary parking area while the project is being completed, as about 100 parking lots would be unavailable during the project.

He said the developer had been working on the Indah Water Consortium on the matter for some time, only to realise later that the land actually belongs to the city’s sewage department and hasn’t been transferred to the consortium. This meant that no temporary parking would be available.

The People’s Housing Project (PPR) areas of Kampung Baru Air Panas and Seri Semarak had also been affected by the parking lot projects there.

“Residents at PPR Kampung Baru Air Panas are complaining that poor planning of temporary parking spaces has negatively affected some 200 vehicle owners.

“At PPR Seri Semarak, lorries coming in and out of the project site have kicked up dust, which in turn affected hawkers at a nearby food court.

“All these issues give the impression that there is no comprehensive master plan to develop these PA and PPR areas, but instead solutions are found on an ad hoc basis that brought many other problems,” he said.

The multi-storey parking lot projects at PA Desa Rejang, PPR Kampung Baru, and PPR Seri Semarak had started on Monday and cost around RM30 million each, according to Fahmi.

The one at PA Desa Rejang is slated to have 725 parking lots in eight storeys, and is slated for completion in a year.

The three projects in Kuala Lumpur’s Setiawangsa area are part of DBKL’s RM408 million project announced on March 7, which would add around 600 parking lots to each of 13 PA and PPR areas.

Setiawangsa MP Ahmad Fauzi Zahari had mentioned the project even earlier, on Dec 28 last year, he said.

Deadly consequences

Fahmi (photo), who is also the PKR Youth vice-chief, said the parking problems are a result of a ‘cascading failure’ in the initial planning of the housing areas.

The planners did not anticipate the sheer number of vehicles that would park at the housing areas, which is where the problem started, he said.

Already, residents have to resort to triple parking when they come home at night, and the congestion can have deadly consequences.

About three months ago, he said, an acquaintance of his who lived in PA Desa Rejang died of a stroke, because the ambulance got stuck in the parking lot and could not reach the victim in time.

He said he himself got stuck in the parking lot before, when an Indah Water truck tried to make a turn but was blocked by parked vehicles. He was unable to leave until about an hour later.

The new multi-storey parking lot would alleviate this, but also take up space that is now occupied by an open-air badminton court.

He pointed out that the amount of open space at PA Desa Rejang is already very limited, and well below it should actually be.

He questioned whether the authorities had done a traffic impact assessment on the 13 project locations before awarding contracts to developers, and whether the contracts had been awarded through open tenders or not.

He also queried whether the projects had been rushed without proper planning in order to award the projects before the 14th general election.

As for the local MP, Fahmi asked what Ahmad Fauzi would do to help resolve the problem.