The pros and cons of redeveloping used land

SOME call it urban renewal, others prefer to call it regeneration. Yet there are those who prefer a less politically charged term like transformation. By whatever name it is called, each of these involve changes to land use.

The last several years, the Government announced several mega projects which involve some form of change in the use of land. There is the Sungei Besi Airport, which involves the conversion of an airport and its surrounding land into a mixed commercial project where hotels, service apartments and retail commercial space will be incorporated. In the case of the Sungai Buloh Rubber Research Institute, that involves the change of agricultural land to commercial use.