Kota Kinabalu City — Coastal Development

When I was still in lower primary school, I used to follow my sadistic grandmother whenever she's making her rounds to her customers; selling clothes, much the same way like how the Pakistanis do their business. But unlike the Pakistanis, she took the bus. I had my share of hardwork in carrying those huge bundles of clothes. I can still remember the time we sat at the stalls beside the then Cathy Cinema in the heart of Kota Kinabalu Town (about 7 years ago, KK attained the city status). The stalls were located immediately fronting onto the sea.

More than three decades have since elapsed, and KK has gone through so many changes. Cathy Cinema and the stalls are no longer there today. The sea in front of the cinema has been reclaimed and then developed with shops known as Segama. Further reclamations over the years saw the emergence of Hyatt International Hotel, Emporium, Wisma Merdeka, Wisma Sabah, and Gaya Centre, to name a few. Subsequent years saw even more coastal reclamations to make way for Kota Kinabalu expansion, notably the Sutera Harbour Resort development, the Asia City (formerly Kampur Air), Api-Api developments, Sinsuran, Centrepoint, Karamunsing and Sembulan. Some ongoing projects on reclaimed sea include the Suria Capital and the KK Times Square. As a rough estimate, easily half of KK City comprises reclaimed sea.

Over the years it has been announced repeatedly that there will be no more reclamation of the sea in order to protect the environment. In fact one such announcement was made several weeks ago. Some projects were "frozen" on grounds of enviromental concerns. Yet we all know that what's "frozen" will sooner or later be likely to "melt" in the heat of the property market. Money talks bullshit walks, you see.

About 3 to 4 years ago, I attended the launching of Phase 2 of the Marina Court Condominiums. These condominiums are located within the Api-Api development to the south of Sinsuran. One of the many selling points for this particular development was the "sea view", especially from the upper floor units. In KK, many people are willing to pay slightly higher prices for the so-called "sea view". But I rediculed this particular selling point. I said it won't take very long before the sea view is blocked by another development at the sea front. Money can do a lot of things—even overwhelm environmental concerns. And so the representative of the development and I had a short debate—she insisted that no more developments will be allowed at the sea front adjacent to the Marina Court Condominiums. Well, it turned out that Phase 2 of the Marina Court Condominiums sold well, and the project was completed recently.

Then a few weeks ago the City Hall announced the development approval of yet another project—the Kota Kinabalu Waterfront. True enough, this project, when completed, will block the sea view of the Marina Court Condominiums. Of course this project drew a lot of negative reactions from the public; but particularly those unit owners of Marina Court Condominiums for obvious reasons. It was subsequently announced that the relevant authority will reconsider the development approval. The project will be "thoroughly studied". It begs the question of whether such "thorough study" should have been carried out way before the approval was granted.

But after all's been said and done, I am sure the authority will be able to find good reasons why this waterfront project should proceed as planned. For example, here is one support for the project to proceed. Perhaps a lot of people sitting in high places will be very upset if this project is scrapped off. We can't upset these people now, can we?