KUALA LUMPUR, March 21 — One morning in June 2016, Taman Tun Dr Ismail (TTDI) residents on their usual walk through the Taman Rimba Kiara (TRK) spotted a notice board announcing the construction of several blocks of luxury condominiums.

It shocked everyone in the neighbourhood that this mega project will take up 12 acres of the 25-acre park.

So they rallied together, protested and took the authorities and private developer to court.

After a lengthy battle — including an appeal by the authorities in 2021 against the court’s judgement in favour of the residents — they finally won in 2023.

But some may ask, so what if the development project took up so much park land, why did the residents take the authorities and the developer to court? What was all the fuss about?

Here is why.

What sparked the residents’ rage

Taman Rimba Kiara is a 25-acre green space located in TTDI, Kuala Lumpur and it serves as one of the few remaining urban parks in the city.

The controversy began in 2014 when Yayasan Wilayah Persekutuan (YWP), a foundation parked under the Federal Territories Ministry, entered into a joint venture with Memang Perkasa Sdn Bhd (MPSB), a subsidiary of Malton Berhad, a private developer.

Months later, the TRK land plot was broken up into two parcels with half (12 acres) transferred to YWP for development.

In 2017, the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) approved the project, which involved a proposed construction of eight blocks of 42- to 54-storey luxury condominiums and a 350-unit affordable housing project for the Bukit Kiara longhouse residents.

For the first time TTDI residents organised a protest

The approval for the luxury condominiums sparked strong resistance from TTDI residents who viewed the project as a major threat to the park’s integrity and the quality of life in the surrounding area.

Khairudin Rahim, a TTDI resident, and one of the co-founders of the Save Taman Rimba Kiara group said since the authorities ignored the residents’ objections, they took it to the streets.

“The TTDI Residents Association had rallied those who were unhappy about the project, and that’s when we had our first ‘village meeting’ over the matter.

“We didn’t even know each other until that day. All of us have never done this before. We’ve never organised any protest, that was our first — June 26, 2016,” he told Malay Mail when contacted.

In July 2017, DBKL issued a development order (DO) to allow YWP and MPSB’s joint development without informing TTDI residents despite objections raised.

Seeing that their protest and objections were ignored, TTDI residents had in August 2017 filed a lawsuit, seeking court orders to cancel the [DO] and to have DBKL adopt and gazette its city plan (which had recognised the 12-acre project site as a public park).

TTDI saw its second protest on November 27, 2017, when they found out that DBKL had approved the building of a sales gallery — despite the lawsuit — three days after residents had raised their objections in a public dialogue.

“They did one townhall session with us… that was involving Tengku Adnan, but it was basically ignoring the fact that the whole of Taman Rimba Kiara is 25 acres.,” he said, referring to former FT minister Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan mansor.

“As far as he was concerned, Taman Rimba Kiara is 13 acres, and he said that they won’t touch the balance. But the point is, they had already cut the park in half, you can’t say that you’re not touching the park.

“When we saw that there was no change of heart, no change of mind, that’s when we decided to go to court — and that we will go all the way,” said Khairudin.

Follow existing plans drawn up for the city

All these would not have happened if the government and authorities stuck to the plans they drew up and gazetted for Kuala Lumpur city.

Professor Datuk Gurdial Singh NIjar, the TTDI residents’ lawyer, recently said as the Court of Appeal had clarified in its judgement, the structure plans (be it present or future) that have been gazetted, reflects an agreement between the people of the country and the government, to ensure that that their Malaysians’ quality of life, their habitat and living conditions, are in fact advanced in the interest of the people themselves.

“Because, when it comes to planning law — who is going to approve what project, in which part (the area) and what’s the nature of the project —when you look at the law itself and this has been clarified once and for all by the Court of Appeal and the Federal Court, this is actually an agreement between the people of the country and the government of the country.

“The role of DBKL is not just to look to a developer and say that, yes we must not stop development, but it is to look holistically at the condition of life, the environment and facilities.

“So in that regard, if there are people from the planning authority here, it is well for you to understand that planning law is as now clarified and brought back to its basic roots by the Court of Appeal and Federal Court — it is actually a contract made between the government and the people to advance the interest of the people,” said Gurdial, when he spoke recently at a screening of a short documentary made on TRK.

The documentary done by radio station BFM — set to be aired to the public on YouTube today — was inspired by the resilience of TTDI residents who successfully “rescued” TRK.

Gurdial had further explained that planning laws were made 30 years in advance as they chart out how, Kuala Lumpur for example, should be developed — why there should be a green lung, where there should be mixed development, schools, mosque and so on.

“So that is the planning that is done, that is the obligation of the authorities to do a proper plan, this is called a development plan, so they draw up a plan that’s called the Structure Plan,” he said.

In the April 2023 Federal Court decision to cancel DBKL’s approval to build apartment blocks on part of TRK’s land, it said that the mayor had wrongly and illegally exercised his discretion under the Federal Territory (Planning) Act of 1982 (FT Act), when DBKL ignored an existing master plan for Kuala Lumpur’s development (which marked the project site as a green space for public use) and approved the apartment project here.

The two development plans in this case were the Kuala Lumpur Structure Plan 2020 that was gazetted in 2004 (which marked Taman Rimba Kiara as a green space for public use) and more detailed Kuala Lumpur City Plan 2020.

In the 2008 Draft Kuala Lumpur City Plan 2020, TRK was still marked as a public park and green open space, but the version which was finally gazetted in 2018 marked half of TRK (project site) as a “mixed development” zone.

Taman Rimba Kiara, in all its glory. — Picture by Ahmad Zamzahuri

Respecting the people’s voices

As said by the Court of Appeal and Federal Court, Gurdial reiterated, the plans are done with the participation of the public, because it is their lives that will be affected, so that is public participation.

“The court said it very clearly, if there was no adequate public participation, then the plan that is drawn up, we can challenge and set aside,” he said.

He added that the courts also said in regard to public participation, for example when objections are raised by the people, there must be a response to these objections, and the response must be conveyed at that particular time to the people who raised the objections.

If the authorities choose to not respond, they must still give reasons to why the people’s objections are going to be ignored.

“Because all this while they just have these town hall meetings, because the law says you must have these meetings, and then they just listen to you, I would say in a ‘slipshod’ way, after that they proceed to do whatever they wanted to do exactly as before the objections were raised.

“In other words they ignored the objections.

“But the court says no, as public participation also means that when the public has responded to the development of the plan, or with regard to the permission that has been given, then they (the authorities) must respond to it,” he said.

The courts have also shown that anyone can challenge decisions made by authorities if they spot illegalities.

“Anyone can come and challenge, because usually they will say only those who are directly affected by the development or immediately adjoining are entitled to challenge.

“But the court said no, they said that anyone who feels adversely affected even if it’s just one person if you can point to an illegality, has the right to bring an action.

“So that is where this case has opened up scope for ordinary citizens in the quest for justice, democracy and rights to advance their cause in the interest of a wider community and for people of generations to come,” said Gurdial.

So they have won, what’s next?

Although the TTDI residents finally won the lawsuit which took almost seven years, there are still a few things the government needs to fulfil.

Firstly, ensure that housing for longhouse residents — promised since 1982 — materialises and secondly, to regazette the park’s 12 acres that was sold to the private developer, in order to make the park whole again.

“As long as you don’t regazette the park, it is still free for all,” Khairudin said.

One more thing the Save Taman Rimba Kiara Working Group is asking of the government is for an investigation against DBKL and those involved in cutting the development project deal.

“The fact that the courts said that DBKL acted unlawfully and illegally, it should have rung alarm bells.

“We thought about it, the ruling came out in 2023, and the court had clearly stated that there was a lot of conflict of interest between the Kuala Lumpur mayor then and DBKL.

“That’s why the Save Taman Rimba Kiara group is asking for an investigation,” he said.

Khairudin explained that their call was made based on the Federal Court’s findings whereby DBKL failed to comply with the provisions of the Kuala Lumpur Structure Plan and also the Draft Local Plan in issuing the DO.

“Apart from that, the Federal Court has also found that the DO is tainted with a conflict of interest in relation to the mayor and YWP.”

He pointed out that since the DO has been held to be illegal and tainted with conflict of interest, it is perhaps imperative for the authorities to investigate why such conflict was allowed to happen and who benefited from such conflict.

“The April 2023 Federal Court decision will not have a deterrent effect if the individuals responsible are not investigated and brought to court.

“This is the only way for public confidence to be restored in DBKL especially after taxpayers monies’ were utilised to vehemently defend this legal action by the residents all the way to the Federal Court,” said Khairudin.

The Cabinet had in its decision last July 2024 directed DBKL to maintain the greenery in Taman Rimba Kiara and to construct permanent housing for 98 families for the longhouse community.

Segambut MP Hannah Yeoh had then highlighted that the permanent housing should be built on the current 4-acre footprint without encroaching into Taman Rimba Kiara.