MPKj president calls on developers to consider safety

The Star,Wednesday, 11 May 2016

BY QISHIN TARIQ

SMALL housing developers have to step up in implementing safer environmental design and consider its benefits to the city’s safety standards, says Kajang Municipal Council (MPKj) president Mohd Sayuthi Bakar.

Speaking at a seminar on Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), he said such design was essential to make Kajang safer and more comfortable for residents.

The guidelines drafted in April 2011 and put into practice in 2012 called for improved town design such as having more sidewalks and streetlights, CCTVs in strata properties, and building gated and guarded communities.

Mohd Sayuthi told reporters that small developers had been reluctant to adopt CPTED due to additional costs incurred.

However, he urged developers not to just consider the cost factor, but its latent benefits like improving quality of life and housing value plus lowering crime rates.

Asked if the council was mulling providing incentives for compliant developers, he replied this was not “a subsidy nation” and that it would affect the commercial value of the developer’s own projects.

“The projects that adopted a ‘safe city’ approach sell easily,” Mohd Sayuthi said.

He listed EcoWorld Majestic, Setia Eco Hill and Tropicana Heights – all developments in Semenyih – as examples of developers that went above and beyond MPKj’s CPTED standards.

He added that developments would only be approved if they fulfilled CPTED’s minimum requirements, though pro-active developers were free to improve standards.

The Town and Country Planning Department head Dr Noor Yazan Zainol said developers, especially larger companies, had been positive of the design principles and satisfied with the benefits reaped.

He revealed the crime index in Kajang has gone down by 6.2% (2015 compared to 2014), with the sharpest reductions in the number of motorcycle thefts and cases of break-ins and tresspassing.

He said while new developments were required to meet CPTED requirements, the onus fell on the Government to retroactively improve older developments, adding that they had two pilot projects in Sungai Chua and in Balakong near Cheras South.

Noor Yazan, Shah Alam City Council officer Annie Syazrin Ismail and Prevent Crime Now crime safety specialist Shamir Rajadurai presented their talk to some 290 participants on the principles of CPTED and case studies from Kajang and Shah Alam.

The workshop aimed to spread awareness about CPTED to the public as well as receive feedback from stakeholders.