Open space is for landed property, not open sea

KOTA KINABALU - Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) welcomes the assurance by the director of Land and Survey, Datuk Osman Jamal, that the land department is studying the protection for the beach front at Tanjong Aru, known as first, second and third beaches.

"The study should be completed in a short time because it is a straight forward matter as the area is open sea without any maritime traffic, jetties or ports", said SAPP President Datuk Yong Teck Lee in response to Datuk Osman's assurance that the Tanjong Aru sea front will be protected.

However, Yong said that it is puzzling what Datuk Osman meant when he said that the two parcels of sea front land opposite Shangri-la Tanjong Aru Resort has been proposed to be open space."Open space means that the area is landed property. But the two parcels of land of some 40 acres approved to a private KL company in 1993 is actually open sea. There is no issue of open space if the area concerned is already open sea", said Yong.

As for the the 297 acres of belonging to Sabah Ports Authority at Jesselton Point, Yong said that the government has been rather stingy with the full picture.

"Nobody in government has willingly disclosed that the 297 acres of harbour including the maritime area has been rezoned from (government) ports facilities to urban commercial development. The government in tabling the new amendment to the Land Ordinance 2012 had conveniently omitted that crucial fact that the sea front of close to 300 acres is not protected from reclamation or urban development," said Yong.

"This is not something for a civil servant like Datuk Osman Jamal to answer but for the policymakers, like the Chief Minister or the Minister for Infrastructure responsible for Sabah Ports, to answer. For instance, there is already talk that the 297 acres of Sabah Ports Reserve has been tied in with a KL company for commercial and condominium development. It is something that the people of the City of Kota Kinabalu hope is not true. If true, then this is another case of depriving the government and the people of its public reserve land like the sudden loss of the 53-acre State Railway Reserve", said Yong.