GEORGE TOWN, Aug 15 — The Penang Island City Council (MBPP) said today it hopes to gazette its draft local plan 2035 by July next year.
Mayor Datuk A. Rajendran said the council hopes to wrap up the public engagement process and finalise the draft to be ready for gazetting as soon as possible.
“We hope to complete everything and finalise the draft before gazetting it by July next year,” he said during the opening of an engagement session with city councillors, government agencies and state assemblymen here.
He said MBPP has since held 12 engagement sessions regarding the local plan with various parties and each session allowed stakeholders to air their views and submit proposals for improvements to the local plan.
He added that more focus groups will also be held to gather more feedback so that the local plan will meet the needs of the people and the state government policies.
Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow said this is the third attempt by MBPP and the state government to draft a local plan since 2008.
“Even without the local plan, the island’s development is based on the state structure plan and now we are finalising the Penang Structure Plan 2040,” he said.
He said the structure plan has various guidelines for development control in Penang, so even without a local plan, all development projects still need to adhere to the guidelines.
He stressed that all development plans in Penang still needed to undergo strict regulatory processes for approvals, even without a local plan.
He said it is impossible for the state to get input from every single Penangite, but it will reach out to as many groups, agencies and organisations as possible to get their feedback.
Penang island’s first draft local plan was completed by the previous administration under Barisan Nasional in September 2007 but it was never gazetted.
The current administration presented its first Penang island draft local plan in 2022 and held a public display.
Due to public outrage over numerous errors in the draft, it was scrapped and a redraw was announced by Chow in 2023.
The local plans are statutory plans that contain policies and strategic planning of the state structure plan with a more detailed land use map for the Local Planning Authorities.
