PENANG’S DEVELOPMENT PLANNING IS FAILING ITS PEOPLE

Penang today stands at a critical tipping point.

Many residents across the state are living with daily, worsening consequences of decisions made without transparency, proper planning or meaningful community input.

Traffic congestion has become a permanent feature of life. Flash floods that were once rare now strike with increasing frequency. Green spaces continue to vanish.

And in many neighbourhoods, residents say they feel powerless as major development projects advance without clear justification.

At a Speak Up for Penang forum attended by over 100 people on 30 November 2025, residents are asking how we reached this point, and why long-term planning has been sidelined.

The event was jointly organised by Aliran, Consumers’ Association of Penang, ecology and climate network Jedi, Malaysian Nature Society, public transport users’ group PeTUA, Penang Heritage Trust, Protect Karpal Singh Drive residents, Sahabat Alam Malaysia, Tanjung Bungah Residents’ Association and Women’s Centre for Change.

These organisations have collectively witnessed years of complaints, objections and concerns being brushed aside.

Former Penang city councillor Dr Lim Mah Hui, one of the organisers, said that Penang’s system of planning has failed to protect the public interest. “We still do not have a local plan. That means development proceeds without the clarity, discipline and accountability that a proper planning framework would bring.

“Communities are left vulnerable to ad-hoc decisions. This is not how a responsible, people-centred state should function.”

Penang’s water situation reflects the same structural weaknesses. Despite being a water-scarce state, Penang is now paying a high price to buy water from another state – even as our own limited water catchment areas continue to be disturbed.

Residents across the state have been asking the same urgent questions:

• Why are the same problems repeating year after year?
• Why are flood-prone areas still being approved for construction?
• Why are new highways planned without a holistic mobility strategy?
• Why are communities excluded from decisions that directly affect them?
• When will Penang finally implement local plans?

The forum brought these questions into the open – not to provoke fear or anger but to restore the one thing many in Penang feel they have lost: the right to be heard in the future of their own state.

The Speak Up for Penang forum was organised precisely because the people want answers – and because they want their voices acknowledged, not dismissed.

“This is not anti-development. It is pro-people,” Lim said. “We want development that improves life, not development that creates hardship – not development that floods our homes, clogs our roads, destroys our green spaces, and sends us scrambling to buy water from elsewhere.

“Penang deserves better, and Penangites know it.”

– from a report in Aliran (1 December 2025)

Original report here: https://aliran.com/coalitions/penang-forum/why-penangs-development-planning-is-failing-its-people