The determining factors of identifying boundary of selected cities in Malaysia

Abstract

This research sought to determine factor of identifying boundaries of selected cities in Malaysia. There are three issues identified from in research, which is the absence of clear city boundaries, poor coordination on zoning and unbalanced land use developments and lack of maintenance and management between two local authorities. Primary focus of this research was to address the implementation of development of cities in Malaysia through good planning practices that can potentially benefit society, specifically in the field of planning development. A total of 116 planning practitioners (37 local planning authority personnel, 67 planning consultants and 12 planning developers) were drawn through convenience sampling by using Yamane’s sample size calculation. Two methods were adapted to collect data; the first method was structured interviews with an expert panel which involved questions related to identification of city boundaries and the relevance of these elements to urban planning policies, urban development, and the research issues. The second method was a questionnaire survey referred from several structure interview structured interview. The findings indicated that more respondents were involved in the planning on development cities compared to respondents who have not been involved in such developments. Overall perception of the respondents toward indicators of cities’ boundaries was positive, despite the disagreement indicated by some of the respondents in several categories based on their working experience and occupation. The planning practices specifically catering to development of cities were evaluated based on material consideration and planning policies. Four material consideration aspects were investigated in the research, and legal regulation have been recorded as first rank for the material consideration for the planning on development of cities. Moreover, Town and Country Planning Act 1976 record the first rank for the planning policy. However, based on the concerns from the respondents during the questionnaire survey, many local authorities and stakeholders are facing issues related to development of cities. Thus, three suggestions have been made: create new committee consist of officer from both local authorities to handle any planning application or development in the area within the identified boundaries, monitor and maintain neighbouring local authorities’ boundaries and develop legal framework for regulating of negotiate development contribution through planning agreement of cities’ boundaries.