City Hall keeping tabs on Inanam reserve
Published on: Wednesday, August 03, 2022
By: Sidney Skinner
City Hall personnel found that this Inanam reserve had not been maintained in July.
City Hall is keeping an eye on an Inanam reserve in one part of Inanam to ensure that the government body, which owns the land, tends to it at regular intervals.This follows feedback, on and off, from those living nearby over the past two years about the nuisance posed by the overgrown grass and weeds inside the compound.
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A spokesman for the agency’s Landscaping Department said the property had repeatedly been found to be unkempt.
“This has happened twice over the past six months, in March and July,” he said.
“Our officers made four separate inspections of the area over this period.”
He said reminder notices had twice been left at the site, with City Hall requesting that body clean up the reserve as soon as possible.
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“Four days after the first one was put up in March, our staff observed a pair of grass-cutters maintaining the property.
“We wrote to the body, after the second one was issued. We advised the administration in this letter to consistently look after the reserve so that the nuisance did not recur.”
Grass-cutters were spotted dealing with the greenery inside in March.
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The spokesman said such maintenance should preferably be performed on a monthly basis.
RAMSEY of Inanam said the fenced-off land often looked like a mini jungle.
“I suspect that reptiles may have made their habitat among the unkempt greenery inside,” he said.
“Some of my neighbours have seen snakes and rats moving across the road near this property.”
Others feared that unscrupulous parties could make use of the reserve to carry out misdeeds in the neighbourhood, according to him.
He claimed that several homes, near the reserve, had been targeted by burglars off late.
Ramsey noticed that the overgrown “lalang” inside was more than knee-high in mid-July.
“I cannot understand how the landowner could have left the compound in such a mess.
“A stray spark from any electrical installations in the vicinity, or one carelessly discarded cigarette butt, is all it will take to set the property on fire.”
He said this blaze could spread quickly to the other houses in the area.
Ramsey decried the property-owner’s failure to tend to the land as endangering the wellbeing of the public there.
“I first made City Hall aware about the sorry state of the property in early 2020 and again a few more times in the years since.
“Once or twice the grass has been cut but, for the most part, the land has been left to go wild.”
The spokesman refuted the rate-payer’s suggestion that the agency had disregarded his concerns.
He said check of its records revealed that City Hall had liaised with the body’s staff about the poor state of its land on eight separate occasions between February 2020 and January.
“We were assured in six of these instances that its staff would either check on the property or arrange to have it maintained,” he said.
He said City Hall took a serious view to unkempt properties which had become a nuisance to its rate-payers.
“We are presently working with our Legal Department to begin court proceedings against 71 negligent landowners,” he said.
He said a final warning, signed by the Mayor, would be given to these rate-payers as part of this process.
“They will be notified that their ‘overgrown and unmaintained’ land was an eye sore and source of discomfort to the public in the area due to the presence of pests, including mosquitoes, which might be breeding on their property.
“A seven day grace-period will be given for these individuals to abate this nuisance.
“If they fail to comply, then we will have no choice but to initiate legal action.”
If found guilty in court, landowners faced the possibility of having to settle a fine for as much as RM1,000, serve a jail term of up to six-months or both, according to the spokesman.
He said this action could be taken under Section 49(c) of the Local Government Ordinance.
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