The "errors in printing and binding" found in the controversial PJ1 draft plan may be the cause of the misunderstanding among PJ residents, said Selangor exco for local government, housing and squatters, and environment, Mokhtar Dahlan today.

He said the Petaling Jaya Municipal Council (MPPJ) will, at most take one month, to study the objections raised by residents first and amend the draft plan based on the more valid objections.

"Those objections that they cannot justify will be sent to the state-level committee for hearing," he said when contacted.

On why residents were led to believe that the state-level committee will be the one to hear their objections, Mokhtar said the errors were "not on policy matters, so there shouldn't be a problem".

"We will rectify them at my level," he said, but declined to elaborate further.

The state-level committee, chaired by Mokhtar, will hear the objections individually by summoning each resident who had registered an objection.

Three other members on board are the state town and country planning director, Dr Halimathon Saadiah Hashim, state land and minerals department director, Asahar @ Ishak Abong and the state legal advisor, Mohd Zawawi Salleh.

The controversial draft plan will change the satellite township into a bustling city by proposing infrastructure developments such as interchanges, widening of roads, and commercial and residential projects, all of which will lead to a population explosion and increase traffic flow.

Land acquisition fear

More than 10 briefing sessions were held by the MPPJ for groups of residents from different sections in the last two months but neither the local council nor the respective state assemblypersons were able to allay the general fear of compulsory or reverse land acquisition.

At the close of the two-month objection period on May 18, more than 15,000 residents have raised objections in full or in part against the draft plan which is the first of four detailed development plans for the Petaling district until 2010.

Last Friday, 5,000 residents submitted a 30-page memorandum to the MPPJ claiming that the draft plan was inconsistent with the structure plan as found in Part IX of the Town Boards Enactment of the Federated Malay States gazetted in 1996, and that it was still in force under Section 59 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1976.

Their argument was that the structure plan gazetted with amendments were essentially the objections raised by PJ residents back in 1995 requiring future developments to be limited to outlying areas of PJ.

Another 500 residents from Section 6 who had submitted their objections and counter-proposals to the MPPJ reiterated their desire for an improved quality of life instead of arbitrary development.

Meanwhile, more than 11,000 residents from Section 1 have applied to the court for a declaration that the entire draft plan is illegal.

The case will come up for mention on June 19. The application to strike out the suit naming MPPJ president Emran Kadir as the sole defendant will also be heard on the same day.