Planning permission, Land Conversion, subdivision, building plan

In a property development process in Malaysia, a client (the developer or the land owner) has to pursue approval in the projects for
many aspects so that the project can be proceeded smoothly. Local authorities are important in the process because they approve layout
plans, building plans, earthwork plans and issue development orders since development control is part of local authorities’ roles. Getting
approval of planning permission, conversion and subdivision of land, and building plan are crucial before developing a project.

There are 3 types of land in National Land Code, which are agricultural, residential and industry. Normally, the lands the developer
claimed or buy from the private land owner are for agricultural purpose and the land title must be converted into desire title before
developing such as commercial, industrial or residential depends on the intention of the developer. For the subdivision of land into two or
more lots, developer must get the Planning Permission from the Local Authorities or Pihak Berkuasa Perancang Tempatan in Bahasa.
The process can be carried out through One-Stop-Centre (OSC) in all the Local Authorities. OSC is an Independent body to facilitate the
submission process of property development plans at the local authority. OSC is established by our Malaysian government in April 2007
under the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. The purpose of this is to make the application process more efficient, less time-
consuming and of course will help Malaysia’s property and real estate sectors to remain competitive with other countries’. OSC is said to
reduce the time consumed because consultant now can submit layout plan, building plan, road and drainage plan, earthwork and
landscape plan simultaneously (Abdullah et al. 2011).

First, developer will engage the Town Planner or Land Surveyor (only if the area of the land is not more than 5 acres) about the
details. The town planner will prepare the layout plan or development proposal report (for the land which is more than 5 acres) according
to the terms of the Town and Planning Act 1976 , the Street, Drainage and Building Act 1974 and terms of other related technical
departments. Layout plan is made following the requirement by the local authorities which includes total number of houses proposed,
recreation park, roads, surau, pedestrian walkway, condominium, etc.

Following the guideline of the town planner, developers should apply planning permission from OSC Secretariat by sending
documents such as Layout plan or development proposal report, Form A (Schedule II Uniform Building By Laws 1984), landscape plan,
earthworks plan and etc. The Layout has to consist houses, road, open space, car park, surau, treatment plant, pedestrian walkway. The
documents will received by OSC Secretariat first and will hand over again to the local authorities.This process takes about one month
time. In Kuala Lumpur and Pulau Pinang this known as Development Order and its required payment.

Local authorities will open file to examine the documents. Checking the Development Proposal Report according to the
Development Proposal Report Manual by the Town and Country Planning Department, they will also notify the owners of the
neighbouring lots. Besides, local authorities will processing the plans related to technical departments or agencies such as The Malaysian
Public Works Department (JKR), Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB), Department of Environment and so on. If all of the parties involved
have no objections, a meeting among the OSC Committees will be held to present the paper works and a approval letter will be given by
the president of local authority( Yang Dipertua PBT).

The coming up steps will be conversion of land and the subdivision of lands into lots. These two stages can be done
simultaneously by the Land Surveyors. Since most of our lands’ status in Malaysia are agricultural, after getting the approved planning
permission, the developer must convert the status to desire status for the following housing development process to be carried out. To
convert the land status, land surveyors hired by developers will apply for approval of land status conversion from the State Government
through Land Office (Daud, Jaafar & Dzulkifli, 2013).

Upon getting the approval, Land Surveyors will be dealing with the subdivision of lands into lots according to the terms in the
Planning Permission. Land subdivision is a process where land associated with permanent ownership either registrar or land office is
divided into 2 or more portions. The divided portion would register under same name of owner or joint-owner. The actors involved will
be the land surveyor. The surveyor will determine the best possible layout, balancing the contradictory criteria of maximum number of
lots, constraints of council, shapes, sizes, topography, traffic flow, road, and so on. After all relevant consideration, surveyor will prepare
for the submission of application to the Council for approval.

The Land Office will engage valuer to confirm the value of the Land and then charge a premium. Developer will have to pay the
premium for the conversion. The premium is quite expensive depending the land is in rural area or city. The steps for the 2 stages can be
explained in the flowchart below.
 After getting QT, developers are now available to apply for the approval of building plan. Before applying, architect and civil
engineer should come out with a proposal building plan and a infrastructure plan respectively. To approve a building plan, the developers
must first meeting with the architect to discuss about the desire design and the types of building. The Architect and Civil Engineer will
work on the detail design for the building plan submission. Secondly, architect will design a proposal building plan following the demand
of the developers. Thirdly, civil engineer will prepare a infrastructure plan which includes the detail of drainage, roads ,sewerage
treatment plant, elevated water tank in the external of the houses. This step can include some environmental sustainable elements such as
the adoption of a bio-treatment system for water bodies and drainage within the parks for aeration (The Star Property, 2018).

Architect and civil engineer will send their plans together with Form A (Schedule II Uniform Building By Laws 1984), photocopy of
quit rent (Cukai Tanah) receipt, and photocopies of land grant to OSC and will later send by OSC to related technical departments for
approval. If there are no any objections, OSC Secretariat will release the notice letter to local authorities to be finalized. The following
step is to pay the fee charged by local authorities and developer will be given the approved building plan and infrastructure plan to kick
off the project (Daud, Jaafar & Dzulkifli, 2013). The authorities that give approval are shown in the chart below.

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