High-rise memo for Selangor government

High-rise memo for Selangor government
05/01/2009 NST By Sheila Sri priya

Residents of high-rise buildings in Petaling Jaya participating in a dialogue session before presenting a memorandum to Selangor State Exco member Iskandar Abdul Samad.

PETALING JAYA: Residents of high-rise buildings in Petaling Jaya have sent a memorandum with a long list to the Selangor government.

The residents feel it is not a tall order. They only want a special unit to be set up under the Commissioner of Buildings (COB) to provide services for about 100,000 condominium and high-rise residential units in PJ.

They made their request through the All Petaling Jaya Residents Association Coalition headed by Liew Wei Beng.

Liew said the setting up of the special unit will ensure that the COB is able to provide the required services to condominium and high rise building occupants.

Among the requests to the Selangor government:

- to list down the services offered by COB

- to provide a budget to establish a COB department or secretariat to each of the 12 local councils.

- to provide enough working staff under the commissioner of buildings to function, and also to include a professional lawyer and a certified accountant.

- to have enforcement guidelines and uniformity for the interpretation of Act 663 for all the 12 councils in Selangor.

- to create an enforcement department at state government level to carry out enforcement duties on errant developers, joint management committee members and related issues.

- to ensure all condominiums form the Joint Management Body (JMB) immediately

- COB must monitor the first JMB meeting.

- To ensure the quorum for the first JMB meeting paid their maintenance charges.

- Joint purchasers are allowed to vote by proxy.

- Developers must not be allowed to vote because the first JMB election is for unit buyers.

- The chairman must have voting rights.

- It is the duty of the developer to convene the first JMB meeting (The developer is often late in having the meeting.

- To ensure the local council has a copy of important data of every high-rise building.

- To obtain all information of unit purchasers, maintenance accounts, building plans - structural and building plans and other relevant information from the developer to enable the JMB to carry out its function well.

- To provide assistance to the Joint Management Committee (JMC) to collect unpaid maintenance fees from errant unit owners.

- To conduct workshops for JMC members.

- To address issues related to building and maintenance funds.

The residents want the state government to view all the requests seriously.

The event was also attended by councillor Mak Khuin Weng and assistant director of development and PJ city council planning department Lee Lih Shyan.

The memorandum was presented to Selangor state exco member Iskandar Abdul Samad after a dinner attended by almost 200 resident association representatives.

There was also a dialogue session by the residents before the dinner.