TAMAN Tun Dr Ismail (TTDI) residents is today submitting some 1,400 letters to City Hall objecting to a proposal to build an office block on a plot of land currently housing a kindergarten in Jalan Lorong Sulaiman 1.

TTDI residents’ association chairman Abdul Hafiz Abu Bakar said the residents were opposed to the building of 72-units of shops and officers in two seven-storey blocks on the site.

“TTDI RA will be submitting our formal objections to City Hall today on behalf of the residents in the Sulaiman area and in TTDI,” Hafiz said at a press conference today at  the TTDI community hall.

The proposed project will see the demolition of the 20-year-old Tadika Diyana.

Work on the office building project is expected to begin next year.

“We are objecting to the proposal because the land is classified as a residential land, but now City Hall is giving permission to convert the land from residential to commercial,” said Hafiz.

TTDI residents have criticised City Hall for its apparent lack of transparency in informing residents of proposed developments in the area.

City Hall said on Saturday that it would hold a hearing for residents affected by the proposed development project, as required under Rule 5 of the Federal Territory Planning Act 1982.

Resident Leon Koay said there was another application to develop a playing field in front of Medan Athinahapan in TTDI.

“There have been requests to City Hall to develop 35,000sq m of land. We have tried to get City Hall to confirm that it is not contemplating any such development, but there has been no response yet,” Koay said at the press conference today.

“A search at the Land Office shows the land was alienated to City Hall in 1990, on the condition that the land was only for a multipurpose hall or for recreational use,” he said.

TTDI residents are also fighting to preserve Taman Rimba Kiara, one of KL’s largest green lungs, from development.

Koay alleged Federal Minister Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor was again speaking off mark when the minister claimed that the park was only 5.3ha large and not 10ha as the TTDI residents claimed.

“The whole lot of Taman Rimba Kiara is 25 acres (10ha), the Federal Territories minister had previously said it was only 11.3 acres (5.3ha) and that he would not touch Taman Rimba Kiara.

“But now a section covering seven acres has been carved out of the 13.3 acres for residential use leaving the remaining 6.75 acres for public space,” he said.

TTDI residents had recently brought City Hall to court to stop a mammoth development in Taman Rimba Kiara.

Last June, City Hall had approved the development of a 29-storey block of 350 affordable housing units, and eight 42- and 54-storey blocks of high-end apartments with 1,766 units, on 4.86ha of land in Taman Rimba Kiara, which is designated as public open space in the Kuala Lumpur City Plan 2020.

The Kuala Lumpur High Court in December last year dismissed the TTDI residents’ application for a stay order, and ordered them to pay RM10,000 costs to each of the respondents – City Hall, landowner Yayasan Wilayah Persekutuan, developer Memang Perkasa Sdn Bhd, and Sunderam Residents’ Association. – February 26, 2018.