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DBKL urged to cancel commercial zone plan affecting 124-year-old ashram
Brickfields residents have urged the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) to reconsider the status of the site where the 124-year-old Vivekananda Ashram Brickfields is located, set to be redesignated a prime commercial area under the Kuala Lumpur Action Plan 2040 (PTKL 2040).
During a public hearing session at the DBKL Auditorium, Kuala Lumpur today, the Save Vivekananda Ashram Brickfields Action Team (Svabac) said they had briefed the panel on the issues affecting the ashram grounds.
“We are here to give our views...
Brickfields residents have urged the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) to reconsider the status of the site where the 124-year-old Vivekananda Ashram Brickfields is located, set to be redesignated a prime commercial area under the Kuala Lumpur Action Plan 2040 (PTKL 2040).
During a public hearing session at the DBKL Auditorium, Kuala Lumpur today, the Save Vivekananda Ashram Brickfields Action Team (Svabac) said they had briefed the panel on the issues affecting the ashram grounds.
“We are here to give our views and object to DBKL’s proposal that the ashram area be classified as a main commercial area or ‘blue zone’.
“We want the area to be maintained as a public facility (white zone).
“We thank the panel today for spending almost 45 minutes and promising to bring our suggestions and views to DBKL,” said Svabac representative Deva Kunjari Sambanthan to reporters after the session.
Earlier, a briefing session was held in private where the attendees were not allowed to take pictures or make recordings following a proposal by DBKL to make the 0.4ha plot a main commercial area.
“The area was gazetted as a national heritage site in 2016.
“However, we cannot rule out the possibility that the area will be taken for development in the future.
“So we want DBKL to keep the land as a heritage site and only use it for religious, cultural and social activities,” said Devi who is the daughter of the late MIC president VT Sambanthan.
Ashram’s trustees wanted to develop site
In 2014, it was reported that Vivekananda Ashram chairperson Dr K Ampikaipakan said the ashram’s board of trustees had approved the decision to sell the 0.4ha plot of land to a developer.
The land was then earmarked for a 23-storey residential redevelopment with 264 apartments and an eight-storey car park built on the site.
Following public protests and the intervention of then-tourism and culture minister Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz, the government through the National Heritage Department (NHD) decided to gazette the building with heritage status.
The ashram, with its bronze statue of the spiritual leader Swami Vivekananda, is one of Brickfields’ iconic buildings that has become part of the area’s historic landscape and a popular tourist spot.
On July 15, 2015, the NHD designated Lot 33, No 220, Jalan Sambanthan, Brickfields as a heritage site but on Oct 13, 2015, the company Vivekananda Ashrama Kuala Lumpur filed a judicial review in the High Court to set aside the NHD’s decision to gazette the building with heritage status.
The company then applied for an order to compel the NHD and the commissioner to reconsider its decision, but on Feb 12, 2016, the High Court refused the application for leave to judicial review.
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