Heritage group slams council over project

"The council is the real culprit because they are the ones to approve the planning permission before ensuring the engineering plans are safe and will not affect the surrounding buildings," PHT president Dr Choong Sim Poey told theSun.

Before approving the planning permission, the council should have fully assessed the environmental impact of the project, he said.

"They can't just allow a building to be built when it can affect other buildings surrounding it," he said, when asked to comment on recent news of cracks appearing in some houses near the project.

He said the case is similar to when Prangin Mall was built years ago where it also affected surrounding buildings, especially pre-war houses.

"This kind of situations is actually avoidable and all parties involved from the project engineer, to the council, to the developer should be held responsible although council is the main culprit," he said.

He said PHT is very unhappy with the council's engineering department as the cracks were definitely due to effects of piling works.

"We are also unhappy with the whole project as they had removed some prewar houses to make way for the project, when they could have maintained those houses and restored it," he said.

He pointed out that the so-called heritage Birch House, which is currently used as the corporate head office of Ivory Group, was not even restored according to heritage guidelines.

"They expanded and distorted the whole building, and this is not a proper restoration for a heritage building," he said.

Recently, there were complaints by residents and shops near the Times Square project over cracks in their houses caused by the project.

The council which has instructed its engineers to monitor the situation is now awaiting a report into the whole issue through an independent study by Ikram before deciding on the next course of action.

The RM450mil Penang Times Square project is situated on a 5.3ha plot that used to be where the Datuk Keramat Smelting plant was located.

Phase One of the project comprises a four-storey shopping mall with over 300 retail outlets while there are three other phases which is scheduled to be completed by 2012.