Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Land deal freeze along HSR route

By Sharen Kaur
sharen@mediaprima.com.my

Published in NST, August 2, 2016


KUALA LUMPUR: MYHSR Corp Sdn Bhd will lay out plans for the authorities to freeze all land transactions along the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore high-speed rail (HSR) corridor.
  The HSR, which will link Bandar Malaysia, here, to Jurong East in Singapore, has a total length of 350km and will require a lot of land.
  However, MyHSR Corp chief executive officer Mohd Nur Ismal Kamal said the construction of the HSR would involve minimal displacement of families and businesses.
  About 335km of the alignment will be built in Malaysia and the rest in Singapore.



  The alignment would be the longest in Johor, about 150km to 160km, Nur told Business Times.
  “Because the alignment is the longest in Johor, there will be more land acquisitions there.”
  There will be three transit stations in Johor, namely Muar, Batu Pahat and Iskandar Puteri.
  Nur said a budget had been estimated for land acquisitions and compensation but he declined to reveal the amount. He said there would be two stages of land acquisition.
  The first will be to freeze transactions for a corridor that is 500m wide.
  “This is where we will file with the local authorities or the state governments to freeze transactions of land identified for HSR use.
  “This will enable us to do soil investigation, survey the land and determine the final alignment within that 500m corridor.
  “Once that is determined, we will take the next step to acquire the land. But we will acquire a narrower corridor of about 50m. So, much of the land will be released.”
  Nur said the 50m-wide corridor would be used for the alignment (which includes building two tracks and reserving space in-between the tracks), the railway reserve and to protect the whole railway against intrusions.
  He said bigger plots would be acquired to build stations, depots and maintenance facilities.
  “As for tunnelling and other works, if we don’t buy the land, we will have to come up with an agreement with the landowner where we can co-exist.
  This is something similar to what MRT Corp has done for the mass rapid transit project.”

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