The good and bad of a gated community

The Star
Thursday, 10 May 2007
12:00 AM MYT

Living in a gated community is not entirely trouble-free as residents in such places have to bear with a major problem such as getting the local authorities to provide services such as garbage collection, clearing drains and covering potholes.

As ratepayers, the residents are entitled to such services.

However, the physical barrier put up at the guarded and gated community makes it difficult for the local authorities to render such services.

“We know the local authority is supposed to provide us with the services but then when we contacted them, they say they could not come in. They said we should do away with the security guard and barrier at our main entrance. But then again, if we remove the guards and the gates what is the point of calling it a gated community,” said Janet Leong who has been residing in one of the oldest gated community in Shah Alam.

Leong, who wished not to reveal the location of her house, claimed that they have been facing the problem for several years.

She said her residents association had been arguing with the local authority and their management company for quite sometime on the issue.

Such problems are quite common, said Selangor Housing and Real Property Board executive director Datin Paduka Alinah Ahmad.

She said usually residents or housebuyers were the ones at the losing end.

“Previously there were no clear guidelines for the developers to follow, leaving many grey areas which at the end leads to problems,” she said during a talk on the Implementation of Gated Community Development in Selangor held at Carlton Holiday Hotel and Suites, Shah Alam recently.

The problems include the public’s right to access a gated area without screening, legal rights of management corporations to the common areas and service charge collection.

Alinah said the access roads to the residential development were usually blocked to allow access to residents only.

“However, these blocked access roads do not belong to the residents living in such housing schemes,” she said, adding that once the developer applied for the titles for the individual homes in the area, the access roads had to be handed over to the local authority.

“The problem will arise when the application is made for individual titles for the houses in the area as the title was released without the access roads and other common areas being handed over to the local council. That means the local authority cannot go in and maintain the road and provide service to the residents,” she said.

Selangor state housing committee chairman Datuk Mokhtar Dahlan said the implementation of the new guidelines on gated communities would ensure that residents get their services from the local authority without sacrificing the security and safety they wanted.

“The state government hopes the guidelines will cover the grey areas and provide common solutions to problems faced by local authorites, developers and residents or housebuyers,” he added.