Penang Global City Centre - Controversy and Criticism

Controversy and Criticism

The development of PGCC was criticized as misleading and lacking in transparency. The controversy ultimately led to the widespread PGCC boycott campaign, and to the plan being put on hold. Petitions, banners and other digital media were launched by the local community to raise awareness of the impact of the PGCC development to the public.

In early September 2007, a few major non-governmental organisations in Penang joined forces to form The PGCC Campaign Group to oppose the development of Penang Global City Centre (PGCC) Project. However, the group is facing a mainstream media blackout.

According to the Joint Press Release by a Group of Concerned NGOs To Oppose The Development of Penang Global City Centre (PGCC) dated 15 Sept 2007

Land Re-zoning
The site of the project - the present Turf Club- was originally given by the government for a nominal sum and was zoned as 'Open Space'. This was changed very recently to 'Mixed Development', even though public opinion was unanimously against it (judging from the submissions sent in by the public during the 2007 Structure Plan exercise).

By doing so, the Penang State Govt has acted arbitrarily and sacrificed the interests of the community to a group of developers.

Traffic Congestion
The project is so large that it will affect almost every person in Penang, but there has been very little public consultation. By our estimate, it will generate about 60,000 traffic movements daily which will be channeled into Jalan Scotland and Jalan Utama (via Jalan Brook).

The traffic dispersal plan for the project leaves much to be desired and we are asking for another traffic study by independent experts to be done before any decisions are made.

Public Consultation
During the drawing up of the Penang Structure Plan, public consultation was minimal, perfunctory and the results were entirely ignored. Since a mega development is going to take place on the Turf Club land that is subjected to the Structure Plan, we would therefore call for a greater genuine public consultation due to the large size of this project.

The project was approved in Putrajaya, plans were finalised without any local inputs, and have now been publicly launched with much fanfare. That is not consultation. It smacks of an attempt to bulldoze aside all objections. It is a top-down planning of the worst type and is against all principles of participatory democracy.

Social Housing
It is a national policy that all development must include 30% low-cost units, and yet none will be built on the site. Instead the developer is proposing to build 6,933 luxury units of apartments and houses on the site. However, the low cost units will be built elsewhere.

EIA
Given the size of the project we would also ask for a detailed EIA to be done, as a preliminary study would not be sufficient to address all the issues that will arise.

Other than concerns raised by PGCC Campaign Group under joint press release. PGCC's developers also have been criticised for providing misleading facts such as:-

PGCC Eco Tech City Towards Zero Carbon City.
. The developers have not backed their claims of a ‘zero carbon’ PGCC with any detailed statistics or scientific evidence, beyond very vague references to eco-friendly architecture and design. It is unclear whether they are including traffic emissions, or the pollution caused by the actual building of the city, which will last ten years or more

Brochures and official website . produced by the developer only showing the two iconic towers. Residential properties with over 37 buildings was not highlighted in any official publication by the developers. .