KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 25 — Every year by this time, nursery owner Sunny Low would put in his orders for mandarin orange trees from China so they arrive in time for Chinese New Year.
These ornamental mandarin orange trees are displayed at homes and businesses as they represent good luck or fortune.
Low, however, has not yet put in his order for these auspicious mandarin orange trees this year because he is not sure where his nursery will be next year.
Nurseries along Jalan Sungai Buloh have been asked by the authorities to relocate to a new site which is not yet ready for them.
“Our business has only started returning to pre-pandemic levels and now we cannot prepare our business for the upcoming Chinese New Year celebration.
“I cannot put the (plant) containers at Bukit Changgang because the place is not ready and I’m afraid if I put them at Sungai Buloh, the authorities will bulldoze them away,” Low, 55, explained.
Low is one of 69 nursery owners in Sungai Buloh ordered by the government to move to a new location at Bukit Changgang, Selangor next month due to road expansion works.
These owners found that their allocated site lacks the infrastructure they were promised. Even worse, the area is at a high risk of flooding as it is low lying.
Nurseries at Sungai Buloh are famed as a horticultural centre and have even become a local tourist attraction for people seeking a wide variety of plants, gardening, and landscaping materials.
They currently operate on land stretching 10 kilometres along Jalan Sungai Buloh, near the Duta-Sungai Buloh DUKE Highway.
During a recent visit to Bukit Changgang, we saw that the area had only recently been cleared of oil palm trees and lacked any visible electricity cables or water pipes.
Selangor and Kuala Lumpur Landscaping and Nursery Operators Association president Lee Chee Hoong said that they were given too little time to move to the new location.
“The cost of moving to a new place is a minimum of RM250,000 and we are worried about constantly moving to new locations,” Lee said, adding that the government had been relocating their busines almost once every decade.
When contacted, Selangor’s Department of Land and Mining said that they had formed a special committee to deal with this issue.
“Although the project is approved by us, it’s managed by the Selangor Agriculture Development Corporation (PKPS) so we are unaware that the allocated land is not ready for relocation.
“Our department has specially prepared 50 acres of land for this project to centralise the nursery businesses in Selangor.
“We were then told in a meeting that the location will be ready with the infrastructure that has been promised in two months' time,” said the assistant director of the department, Kamarul Bahri Bin Baharum.
When asked about the low lying area being vulnerable to flooding, Kamarul Bahri said they were not informed about the issues because the execution of the project is under PKPS’s responsibility.
“We will ask for an extension from them for the execution of the project and the government will make sure the place is done by PKPS before asking the nursery owners to relocate in stages.
“It is not fair (for the owners) if the land is not ready... the new relocation date will be set once the place is fully ready for them,” he added.
Malay Mail contacted Selangor Agriculture Development Corporation but there was no response at the time of writing.
