George Town still belongs to locals, says GTWHI

IT is untrue that most heritage buildings in Penang’s Unesco World Heritage Site are owned by foreigners as alleged by certain quarters, said George Town World Heritage Incorporated (GTWHI) acting general manager Lim Chooi Ping.

Refuting claims that most of the property in the inner city had been bought by foreigners, she said out of the 4,600 plus pre-war buildings in the heritage zone, only a small percentage belonged to foreigners.

“Certain quarters have identified 83 such buildings as belonging to foreigners but if you look at how many pre-war buildings there are here, it is only a small percentage.

“While the (foreign ownership) situation is not critical, we recognise that gentrification is an issue and a series of roundtable discussions will be held with the various stakeholders and non-governmental organisations to come up with a strategy to address it.

“The proposal will then be presented to the state government and we may include it in the Special Area Plan (SAP) for the heritage site,” she told a press conference yesterday.

State Local Government and Traffic Management Committee chairman Chow Kon Yeow, who was also present, said the state government viewed the matter seriously but could not stop private owners from selling off their property to foreigners.

“We are concerned that locals are selling off their buildings, more so to foreigners, when they cannot afford to restore or maintain their property,” he said.

He urged Think City Sdn Bhd (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Federal Government’s investment arm Khazanah Nasional Bhd) to come up with RM500mil so that it could purchase and restore such buildings instead of allowing them to fall into foreign ownership.

“Think City has been doing a good job with its RM20mil seed-funding initiative for urban rejuvenation projects within the heritage site.

“If it obtains more federal funding, pre-war home owners can at least give Think City priority to purchase their property before they sell it to foreigners,” he said.

Chow also called on the state Valuation and Property Services Department to provide more details on foreign ownership of pre-war houses in the heritage zone.

“According to the data given, 61 transactions involving foreigners have taken place in the heritage zone since 2008.

“The number seems to have dramatically risen from June to September this year, constituting 27 out of the 61 transactions. However, the numbers refer to lot-based transactions, not buildings,” he added.

“Each lot may have five or 10 buildings on it so we really do not have an accurate idea of how many pre-war buildings have been sold to foreigners,” he said.

On Oct 8, state Barisan Youth chief Oh Tong Keong called on the state government to control foreign ownership of heritage buildings in Penang.

He claimed that foreign companies, mainly European and Singaporean firms, owned 83 of some 120 heritage buildings surveyed in the inner city of George Town. - The Star