KUALA LUMPUR – The Federal Territories Land and Mines Office has issued its final eviction notice to the famed Kebun-Kebun Bangsar community garden yesterday, citing alleged violation of its temporary occupancy licence (TOL).
The agency’s director Datuk Muhammad Yasir Yahya said although the government supported such community activities, the operators of Kebun-Kebun Bangsar had failed to comply with conditions set under the TOL.
Furthermore, Yasir had highlighted the grouses of residents in the vicinity who lodged verbal and written complaints over nuisances caused by farm animals being reared at the garden-turned-farm and within a residential zone.
The director, responding to posts about the eviction spread on social media, said the agency was forced to take action against Kebun-Kebun Bangsar as the TOL was meant for the operation of a nursery.
“The conditions for the approved nursery include the types of plants (allowed) as well as the prohibition of any permanent structures placed under power lines as per Tenaga Nasional Bhd’s (TNB) technical specifications,” he said in a statement.
Our investigations found that the farm rearing livestock such as chickens, ducks, and sheep, which led to related issues such as odour pollution, flies, and noise disturbances, prompting enforcement.
The director was responding to Kebun-Kebun Bangsar co-founder and landscape architect Ng Seksan’s posts on the notice issued by the agency.
Ng, in the post, pointed out that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri had previously praised community efforts such as Kebun-Kebun Bangsar and a similar garden in Kerinchi.
In late February 2020, Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) had also issued a notice for Kebun-Kebun Bangsar to remove its farm animals from the area.
The site, owned by TNB and located near Lorong Bukit Pantai, was previously an idle piece of land, but was transformed by Ng and his team into a garden growing flowers, vegetables, and fruits in 2017.
The harvests of Kebun-Kebun Bangsar were often distributed to the needy, especially during the movement control order.
However, the community garden in Bangsar has been the subject of complaints by residents living within the immediate vicinity of Kebun-Kebun Bangsar.
Naturally, netizens were up in arms over the eviction notice, with some even accusing the residents of being unsupportive of the “green cause”.
The residents, on the other hand, have been voiceless.
However, yesterday’s events highlighted the longstanding conflict between zealous community activism and the right to residents’ privacy without being affected by noise and odour pollution caused by compost and animal manure.
Furthermore, the visitors of such gardens were not necessarily the residents of the neighbourhood, raising security concerns for those living in the area.
Following DBKL's eviction notice in 2020, prominent architect Kevin Mark Low pointed out that enthusiasts at Kebun-Kebun Bangsar had a sense of “entrepreneurial entitlement”.
“The complainants are not against the open space and nature of a lovely well-located park or farm,” Low said.
“They simply suffer the inappropriately closed and restricted residential siting of the Kebun-Kebun Bangsar for farming and animal rearing activity.”
Low argued that the points raised in supporting Kebun-Kebun Bangsar – including shared open space, public green lungs, nature, and animals – already existed on the site before the group “tore it all up for its personal version of beauty and contribution”.
He also said it is time to recognise that the Kebun-Kebun Bangsar group was not social or community workers, but rather a group of “hobbyists” developed a piece of land bounded by the residential community.
“They should not be entitled to witch-hunt a resident or residents for merely trying to avoid the ill-effects of the inappropriately sited development,” he said.
“Many comments written in support of the Kebun-Kebun Bangsar, allude to ‘community’ and ‘betterment’. Seeing that the majority of the development’s users drive rather than walk to the venue, the glaring question is who ‘community’ indeed refers to in relation to support given.”
Meanwhile, a resident living directly within the vicinity of another community garden echoed Low’s remarks, saying those who did not live so near such “ad-hoc” developments did not understand the suffering of the ones immediately affected.
“They call it a community garden but the people living closest to it were not even consulted before they decided to erect brick structures and compost bins,” the resident, who declined to be named, said.
We have to put up with the smell of fertiliser, manure, and food waste everyday, not to mention the invasion of privacy when it comes to photographs taken of our homes shared for all to see on their social media pages.
“It’s almost like they are doing it for selfies and clout, rather than the betterment of the community.” – The Vibes, June 29, 2022
