House buyers own open spaces

I REFER to the story on open spaces (NST, Aug 19). When one buys a landed property in a housing scheme, many costs are included in the price of the house.

These hidden costs include the making of roads and drains, laying water mains and installing fire hydrants, laying power lines and installing street lights and of other infrastructure works such as sewage treatment plants.

If there is a requirement to provide an open space in the scheme, the cost of the land is also worked into the selling price of the houses constructed. Thus, the open space is bought by the house buyers as an accessory to their houses. That being the case, there should be no doubt to whom the open space belongs.

The scenario is the same as that in high-rise dwellings where open spaces/recreational facilities are provided (and also paid for by the unit purchasers).

The difference is that in this case the unit holders are required to set up their own management corporations to manage/upkeep these places, whereas in the case of landed properties there is no management corporation. That is why in the latter case the open spaces are handed over to the local authorities.

This handing over is not passing of the property to the local authorities, but akin to putting the open spaces under the care of a management corporation. Thus local authorities do not acquire any rights over the land comprised in open spaces.

As for developers who later use these open spaces to build houses or construct other things on them, they are actually misappropriating the land that they are holding in trust for the house purchasers before the land is handed over to the authorities.

This amounts to a criminal breach of trust.

There is a very clear distinction between public open spaces such as the Kuala Lumpur Lake Gardens and open spaces in housing schemes. The former are government land that have not been alienated to anybody.

The latter are private lands, bought up by the house buyers in a housing scheme.

The law on open spaces needs to be amended to make this distinction between the different types of open spaces clear. At the moment, all open spaces are considered of the same status and within the powers of the authorities to do anything with them. This is wrong.

To overcome the problem of developers stealing the open spaces for development and the local authorities sanctioning such theft, or the local authorities themselves allowing the use of open spaces for other purposes, the Uniform Building By-Laws should also be amended to make sure the open spaces are properly entrusted to the state secretaries before the certificates of fitness for occupation are issued.

It should also be made an offence for any local authority to give permission for the use of these private open spaces for any other purpose.

RAVINDER SINGH Sungai Petani