The Malaysian had some very kind words and presented a small quest of sorts - to do some looking into what’s going on in Gasing Hill. There’s some more background regarding this sketchy planned development on a very risky slope at savebukitgasing, bangkit.net and at The Malaysian. Many residents fear that development of this environmentally sensitive area could trigger off a Highland Towers type of disaster that can claim thousands upon thousands of lives and visit untold destruction.
Update: I had missed a good Malaysiakini article earlier which also provides similiar information to some of the following.

It’s not some super great expose yet, but for now, here’s the results from a simple Google search. For me, the most informative discovery was a judgement delievered by the Appeals Court on a suit filed by Gasing Meridian (who I understand own the land) against the Mayor of KL (ie DBKL, I persume) way back - 16th December 2003.

The gist of it seems to be this (corrections welcome! I’m no lawyer :P ) - Gasing Meridian bought up this land even wayer back on October 31st, 1995 for a grand RM 60 million, RM 34 million of which was loaned from a bank, which Andrew Wong of Property Times reported almost exactly a year ago to be Ambank (more from this article later).

As far as I could follow the narrative of the judgement, Gasing Meridian applied to DBKL to develop the land in August 1996, and got a reply in June 1999 (yay bureaucracy!) approving the first stage of development work on the land (all the basic preliminary stuff) but would have to seek further approval before going on to the second stage of development. (For a little more on two-stage development, see this article in The Star Metro)

Gasing Meridian kicked up a fuss, saying that this ‘two-stage development’ was impractical, not viable etc, and made an appeal to the Planning Appeal Board, who subsequently (in August 2005) ruled in DBKL’s favour, saying that while this two-stage thing was indeed a little silly, development in one stage was not viable either because the “contour of the land especially the upper part is too steep.”

Gets more interesting, less than 3 weeks later (lightning speed, if you’ve been following the time line), Gasing Meridian basically then sends a request to DBKL to have them buy back the land - persumably they figured they can’t develop the damn thing, it’s all DBKL’s fault, so DBKL can damn well buy it back.

The Mayor essentially laughs the suggestion off, sounds like.

Oct 4, 2000: Gasing Meridian applies to High Court (judicial rank = 3), asking them to force DBKL to buy the lands back. July 18: the High Court essentially laughs the suggestion off. Gasing Meridian appeals the decision, the Appeals Court (rank = 2) finds: “we think is a preposterous request” (verbatim!).

If I understand this judicial archive document correctly, the Federal Court (’highest court in the land’) refused an application for another appeal (dated May 2003) to be heard.

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So what happened next? I guess we can tell from the following Property Times article dated 19th Nov 2005 that the bank claimed back the land and auctioned it off.

One of the most interesting auctions slated for four days ago on the 15th involved 71 plots of vacant freehold bungalow land in a scheme located in the Kuala Lumpur portion of Bukit Gasing.

Owned by Gasing Meridian Sdn Bhd, which is controlled by Michael Tan of Gasing Heights fame, the properties with a combined area of 31.8 acres carried a reserve price of RM124.2 million, or RM90psf.

If rumours surrounding this project can be relied on, there’s a ton of upside in this price, as it was supposed to have been launched as an exclusive gated-and-guarded bungalow scheme called Sanctuary Ridge, at prices averaging RM220psf. That meant the developer had anticipated that the purchasers of the plots ranging in size between 12,000sq ft and 28,500sq ft would be prepared to pay anything from RM2.6 million to RM6.3 million to call this place home!

According to the proclamation of sale, the land is “overgrown with shrubs and wild trees” and “is hilly and undulating”. Nevertheless, even though the site may be challenging to develop in view of the terrain, the fact individual titles have already been issued and more importantly, that this is one of the last few developable sites in Bukit Gasing, it seems clear that the chargor, Ambank Bhd, should have little problem getting back its money. Had it been left to the owner to sell by private treaty, I’m sure it would have poured all its hard work and sentimental value into the price, putting it in excess of the reserved amount.

I know diddly squat about property, but my dad helped enlighten me. It seems that when collateral properties are reclaimed by the bank, they tend to set a reserve auction price (the lowest they are willing to sell it for) that is exactly what is owed to them, rather than the market price (which is usually considerably higher).

What tends to happen however, is that the original owners collude with friendly associates to buy back the land via another company at this lower price so that in reality, they retain ownership of the land (in fact, they get it for cheaper, if I understand correctly).

This brings us to an interesting question regarding Sanctuary Gasing, who is widely reported in the papers as the new developer for this land in Bukit Gasing.

The thing is, no such company exists under that name - not according to the Companies Commission website anyway. Gasing Sanctuary, Sanctuary Bukit Gasing, Gasing Hill Sanctuary, etc, all also don’t have. Insights anyone?

Re: names involved, the only ones that seem to be online are Richard See (director) and Constance Westwood (spokesperson). The latter seems to be the Managing Director for Asia PR (look at all their bigshot photos!), even though the public relations firm that Sanctuary Gasing engaged to try and sell the residents is usually acredited as Arc Worldwide, owned by advertising leviathan Leo Burnett, who have their own Malaysian subsidiary.

Thus, Sanctuary Gasing remains shrouded in mystery (besides the fact that they spend a lot on PR), security guards and banana trees. A private e-mail described to me the scene at the Resident’s Protest (video on protest here!):

Can you believe that they had put some turf and some fake banana trees (chopped down banana trees propped up) for ’show’ so that the cameras and reporters don’t see the damage? How evil can they get??????!!!!!!!

Heh. Well, guess that’s the little I have for now, will keep trying to see beyond all the fake banana trees….

Tags: Government Negligence, Local Government, TELITI //