Since we had first BMA land use implemented in year 1992 until today, the law has been controlled use of land and size of building with public road width.

BMA land use has split use of land to major activity, minor activity and prohibits activity. Building use that match to major activity has no control of public road width under this law but still need to comply with building regulations.

Current BMA land use which will be expiring soon has restriction of public road width requirement. The development that use allowance in minor activity of land use can be built with in range of 200 metres measure from centre of frontage road. The requirement of public road width is varies from 16 to 30 metres depend on type of building use (see table A).

Table A

Draft new BMA still continue this restriction and spread this restriction even more. It seem that commercial building, office building and others development have new requirement while residential development have no control. The new requirement is within certain range of land adjacent to public road that can be built Hi-rise building or special large building. Land adjacent to public road width not less than 16 metres can be built building within 300 metres range while public road width not less than 30 metres can be built building within 500 metres (see table B).

Table B

All residential building development still able to built adjacent to smaller public road width. Public road width 10 metres allow to built the building not exceed 30,000 sq.m. Building with area more than 30,000 sq.m. have to built adjacent to 18 metres public road width (see table C). Why this building type get special treatment?

Table C

This law may create Ribbon development and force architect or planner to reduce open space in front of building. City can be more dense with large number of low-rise building if developer needs to maximize the build gross floor area (GFA) to archive maximum floor area ratio (FAR). Education or sport building that is special large building size such as auditorium, stadium may have to be in the front if building position is not comply with the new requirement.