GEORGE TOWN: In the face of widespread opposition to its previous reclamation projects, Penang is planning yet another one.
Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow, who held his first press conference in three months yesterday, disclosed there were plans to reclaim a new parcel of land off Bayan Lepas, in an area where the Queensbay Mall shopping centre is located.
The newly reclaimed land will stretch as far as the Sultan Abdul Halim Muadzam Shah Bridge, an area of 1,120 acres.
It will transform the Bayan Lepas Free Industrial Zone into a new waterfront and coastal residences.
Dubbed the Linear Waterfront, it will be an integrated development and reclamation project.
Chow said calls for prospective project delivery partners will be made soon through an advertisement.
Work on another reclamation project, the Gurney Wharf off the north coast, has already been launched and work is in progress.
Another one is the Penang South Reclamation (PSR) project, a mammoth undertaking that involves the building of three man-made islands with a total land area of 4,500 acres.
The PSR was designed to help underwrite part of the cost of the Penang Transport Master Plan project.
The latest project will see the consolidation of the satellite township of Bayan Baru into a key economic component of the southern part of the island. The main objective of the reclamation project is to establish new development zones in Bayan Lepas and to increase the state’s land bank in view of the current acute shortage of land.
Chow said the objective of the project, to be led by the Penang Development Corporation, is also to upgrade the services sector with new hotels, food and beverages outlets, medical-tourism facilities and a mixed development of commercial, industrial and residential units.
There will also be facilities for fishermen, bringing development closer to Pulau Jerejak.
He also announced the state will develop factory lots for small and medium industries at the Batu Kawan Industrial Zone.
After the press conference, Chow handed over 25,000 surgical masks to state public religious schools and Chinese vernacular schools.
