Saturday 3 September 2011

KK FROG TOWN, SHORTAGE PARKING SPACE?



By : DAP MEDIA

THE CAR parking spaces in the Kota Kinabalu City centre is a constant headache and this should be put right immediately and the Kota Kinabalu City Hall must put in an effort to solve the problem. There is mounting complaint received by the KK MP office here.

The KK MP Hiew King Cheu said that the cars in KK City are increasing at a very fast rate but the car parks are not having an increase but seem decreasing due to many car parking lots were used for other purposes, like the rubbish bins centre, car wash, or even reserved parking lots.

The big shopping malls and complexes are also facing shortage of parking space too during peak hours.

Hiew said the situation is very critical now and the problem will become more immense and acute in a few years time. There will be at least an additional 30,000 cars jamming the city centre and flooding the streets in KK.

There is no apparent increase of car parking space, and the circling round to search for a car park lot is wasting a lot of time and fuel.

The reason for the drivers not wanting to park their cars in the malls and complexes is because they don’t want to pay the expensive parking fees, and they usually choose to park illegally on pavements and road corners. They usually get the heavy penalty on being summoned. It is even worst still now the upstairs car parks are very full too even with high charges.

The Town and Country Planning Ordinance 1961 (Sabah Cap.141) on the car parking standards is no longer applicable to the present days use. It is 50 years old, out dated and far from the present days requirements. The ratio between the usage of building type and the number of car park space to be provided is totally different now.

One example of the old standard for commercial building like cinemas and public entertainment places is 1 space for 10 seats or 100 sq ft and this is no longer applicable. The section under the commercial buildings with the ratio of 1 space for 1000 sq ft of shops and 2 spaces for above 1000 sq ft is not enough to park the many cars.

Some people said that if we cannot find a parking lot and being summoned up to RM100, and this is unfair. If the government can use a law or standard which is 50 years old, then the authorities can only fine the offenders a sum equivalent to the price 50 years ago. May be only RM5?

The main reason is that the laws had not been updated, and the developers like to make used of the old sets of laws to maximize their profits which resulted to the piling up of problems.

The DBKK and the local councils must start to look into the various aspects and up grade the laws. The state assembly only sits for two days to discuss how to spend billion ringgits but the truth is that they never want to upgrade our laws. Then, what is the use of the State assembly?

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