Buah Pala residents reject new homes

PENANG, Aug 7 — Kampung Buah Pala residents have rejected developer Nusmetro Ventures (P) Sdn Bhd’s offer to compensate each of the house demolished with a double-storey terrace house. The residents also insisted that they would not vacate their home although the deadline for them to do so is midnight tonight.

The chairman of Kampung Buah Pala Residents’ Association, M. Sugumaran, said the residents would not move out from their home no matter what. He said they did not want to accept the offer because they found everything presented to them to be unsubstantiated and there was no guarantee they would receive the house if anything bad were to happen to the project.

“If the project does not take off, the row of houses offered to us is not given and the compensation would be cancelled. Is this fair?” he told reporters here today.
Apart from that, Sugumaran said the developer also failed to state the new area where the residents would be relocated. “There were 65 families living in the village but the developer’s offer was only for 24, leaving 41 families without a home,” he said.

At a meeting between the state government, the residents and the developer on Tuesday evening, Nusmetro Ventures had agreed to share the 2.6ha plot with the residents by offering each of them a double-storey terrace house for each of the house demolished.

Nusmetro Ventures had given the resident until midnight tonight to accept the offer, failing which, the compensation would be cancelled. The residents had asked the state government and the developer to give more time for them to consider the offer. However, their plea was turned down by the state government. — Bernama