The Penang government will stand with the Sungai Ara residents in their fight against the developer’s plan to build its housing scheme on sensitive hill land, state executive councillor Jagdeep Singh Deo said today.

Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng and Jagdeep met with the residents and their lawyer, Gurdial Singh Nijar, on Sept 9, and a decision was made to support the residents.

“I confirm the meeting took place and I also confirm that we will stand with the residents and wait for the outcome of the case by the Appellate court,” Jagdeep said at a press conference today.

The residents have taken up their case to the Appeals Board, which declared on Nov 20, 2015, that it was wrong to approve this development as it violated the Penang Structure Plan.

On May 29 this year, the High Court overturned the Appeal Board decision and restored the approval given to the developer.

However, the residents did not give up and filed their appeal on June 23, asking the Court of Appeal to nullify this decision.

The Court of Appeal will schedule a date for the hearing of the appeal on Nov 13.

Potential huge payoff concerns

Jagdeep said the state government was previously advised by its legal adviser that if it did not approve projects which were submitted before it took power, it stood to pay a huge amount of compensation.

“This is why we took a neutral stand over the case, we let the residents take the case to the Appeals Board, and then let them exhaust their legal avenues,” Jagdeep said.

“However, Gurdial (photo) has advised us to the contrary, saying we need not pay compensation if we do not approve the project,” added Jagdeep, who is Dato Keramat assemblyperson.

“Our concern earlier was that there were huge sums of compensation involved if we do not approve the projects submitted earlier (than 2008), but since we were advised otherwise, we hope the court case will deliver a positive result for residents.”

Sensitive hill land

Yesterday, Gurdial urged the Penang government to publicly declare its support for the Sungai Ara residents in their pending appeal against the approval of a project on sensitive hill land.

The project in question, dubbed Sunway Hills, is to be located 250 feet above sea level and is situated at a gradient of 25 degrees, beyond the limit permitted by law.

It was approved in 2012 by the Penang Island City Council and categorised under ‘special project’.

Sunway City was planning to build 600 units of highrise apartments and bungalows on the hill.