By Teh Eng Hock
With its first home completed in 1976, Subang Jaya is half a century in age. Like many townships of its era, it carries legacy issues in its design. The way people live, work, and move today has evolved far beyond what the original developer envisioned.
Retrofitting or urban renewal is never easy, but it is the responsibility of town planners and local authorities to adapt and find solutions that meet present needs. It means going back to correct legacy design flaws, ensuring that drains, alleys, and public spaces are adapted to the way people live today.
Yet drains remain uncleared, littering goes unchecked, and building by-laws are not enforced. Shoplots have been renovated with permanent structures such as concrete drain covers, staircases, and ramps that block access to drains. While these may improve accessibility or aesthetics, they raise a critical question: do they comply with MBSJ’s building by-laws?
Permanent structures over drains make cleaning nearly impossible. In one extreme case in SS15, an eatery spanning three shoplots built two twelve-foot long staircases with only a two-feet gap between them. The drain beneath clogged so badly that water overflowed onto the road, leaving KDEB Waste Management workers struggling to reach the blockage. This is not an isolated incident. When scheduled cleaning is already inconsistent, and littering goes unchecked, blocked drains only worsen the situation. Public health and safety are compromised, while enforcement remains lax.
The urgency of enforcement is underscored by the many Rat Eradication Programmes conducted by MBSJ in various commercial areas across Subang Jaya, including SS14, SS15, SS18, USJ 10, USJ 14 and USJ 20.
In the most recent programme in SS15, led by MBSJ’s Health Department and Councillor Ken Chia, 426 rat carcasses were collected from just two back alleys and the wet market. This staggering figure is not just a statistic, it is a reflection of how neglected drains and unchecked littering have created breeding grounds for pests, threatening public health.
Rat eradication programmes are important stop gap measures, but that essentially what it is — a stop gap measure. We are treating the symptoms and not the cause. Take a stroll along the back alleys of SS15 and you would notice countless burrows under the buildings.
Imagine the network of rat burrows underneath the buildings. One wonders if this underground maze will eventually impact the very foundations or structural integrity of the shoplots, as the rodents have created a “basement” to house their village.
Equally damning was the Hari Cuci Malaysia cleanup at SS15, where volunteers collected more than 27,000 cigarette buds in just one hour. That mountain of waste is not the fault of cleaners, but of litterbugs.
Shame on you, smokers! Your careless habits are choking our streets, drains, and parks, and making Subang Jaya dirtier than it should ever be.
But let’s be fair. It’s not only the smokers who are at fault for littering. The general public has to be held accountable too, as the volunteers also dredged up 482kg of rubbish. That’s about the weight of six kapcais!
Decades of weak oversight created this legacy problem, but delay is no longer an option. Subang Jaya cannot continue hiding behind excuses like “this has always been the case” or “everyone is doing it.” Progress requires accountability. If we want our city to improve, we must be prepared to right past wrongs, even if it means stepping on some toes.
Solutions are within reach. Subang Jaya’s problems are not due to missing laws. The by-laws are already there, written into the Street, Drainage and Building Act and enforced through MBSJ’s Building Department.
What is missing is consistent enforcement, transparency, and accountability. Councillors must use their full board meetings to demand action, while the state assemblyman must elevate these issues to the state level, securing resources and harmonising standards. Residents, too, must stop tolerating excuses.
If Subang Jaya is to move from neglect to accountability, councillors must legislate enforcement, the assemblyman must champion systemic reform, and residents must demand nothing less. Only then will our city of nearly fifty years shed its legacy problems and fulfil its promise of being a safe, livable, and thriving community.
