Understanding between local authorities and community vital to making KL world-class city

Understanding between the local authorities and community is one of the main criteria as a guideline towards making Kuala Lumpur a world-class city by 2020, said an urban planning expert.

Assoc Prof Dr Mohd Faris Khamidi from the University of Reading, United Kingdom, said to reach that understanding, community participation, especially their suggestions and agreement should be taken into consideration in planning and implementing development projects.

Speaking to reporters after being a panelist at the forum on ''Moving Cities Forward - Building Inclusive Communities'', here, last night, he said the responsibility in carrying out urban development studies did not just lie with the experts but should also take into consideration the voice of the community as stakeholders in city development.

"This is irrespective of upgrading the public transportation system, building highways or developing an area in the city, as the community can definitely play a role by contributing ideas to the draft plan besides the need for the local authorities and developers to obtain ideas from the experts.

"This can be done through dialogues between the local authorities, developers and residents'' associations at the community halls, thus understanding between both parties can easier be achieved as the residents would have been exposed earlier to information on a development project," he said.

Besides Mohd Faris, the panellists included Garis Architect and AJC Planning Consultants director Ahmad Jefri Clyde, Think City Programme director Lee Jia Ping, Propertypricetag.com chief executive officer Koh Cha-Ly, StarProperty.my assistant general manager Ernest Bernard Towle and Friends of Kota Damansara (FOKD) Community Development director, Jeffery Phang.

Lee said the homeless issue in the city needed to be emphasised to the community in order to make Kuala Lumpur a livable and world-class city.

She said the context of a world-class city was that a city should be livable and should have no issue of homelessness.

"We are often exposed to various plans and initiatives of a city government to develop physically, but humanitarian issues such as homeless people in the city streets should be noted as well.

"There are about 2,000 homeless people wandering around the federal capital, " she said.

Phang said City Hall should learn from Local Agenda 21 (LA21), which emphasised the partnership between the local authorities and community in order to make Kuala Lumpur a livable city by 2020.

"In fact, they should judge all projects by its impacts, not activities. For example, the impact of gotong-royong as a continuous effort towards a clean environment, especially in high-rise flats areas, but it is a total mess a week after," he said.

-- BERNAMA