Papar housing project poser
Published on: Thursday, March 30, 2017
Papar: A project to build 285 units of single-storey terrace houses, believed for retired army personnel, in Kg Pengalat Besar, here, is facing a soil issue that forced an undetermined number of completed units to be demolished and rebuilt due to safety concerns.Residents near the project alerted the matter to Daily Express, claiming that the project site has a sinkhole and the almost completed units were claimed to have been built with no proper piling, thus the need to tear them down. It is not known whether the whole project lacked piling or only some which were in the process of being demolished.
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Based on a signboard that showed details of the project, Papar District Council (MDP) had approved its development plan on April 15, 2014. It was learnt that the project was supposed to have been completed in last December.Papar District Council (MDP) Executive Officer Kusnadi Manuwar told Daily Express, Wednesday, that the council had not received any official public complaint about the project.However, he said there was an issue faced by the developer pertaining to doing some rectifying works which did not involve the Council. When contacted, Sabah Housing and Real Estate Developers Association (Shareda) President Chew Shang Hai said although the developer (of the project) was not a member of the association, Shareda was aware about what was going on with the project.
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He also said he was made to understand that the project had to be demolished due to soil issue."I noted the same problem with Heritage Plaza where it involved a negative piling issue where the installation of the piling did not set inside the ground properly.
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Citing this as a civil engineering issue, he said there are ways to resolve the problem but most importantly is whether the developer would be able to foot the additional cost. Another includes demolishing the existing structures and rebuilding the units from scratch or install an underpinning pile on the existing structures. "But for a single storey development like the project, the best is to demolish and build it all over again compared to a multi-storey structure," Chew told Daily Express on Wednesday. He said the causes of sinking buildings largely due to the soil condition but developers are still left with options to explore and which methods are best or cheaper.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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