Development control in Sabah: a critical analysis and suggestions for reforms

Abstract

Development control is a legal procedure that has provided local authorities with the jurisdiction responsibility to translate ideas and policies of town and country planning into reality. It is also a process which consists of both the making of development plans and the practice of development control by local planning authorities. The processes included preparing and implement that plan through development plans, granting or refusing planning permission in their areas. In general, this research studies the development control system in Sabah in general and specific focus is given on the planning application and planning approval process. The research analyses the current practice of development control in the state, the factors influencing local authority’s decision making process as well issues and problems faced by the current implementation of planning application process. The methods used to collect the data were interview surveys, content analysis, semi-structured questionnaire survey and focus groups discussion. The results of the survey were further analyzed by conducting cross-tabulation, chi-square and also spearman tests. It was found out that the planning application and approval process among local authority in Sabah is similar. However, there are very small differences on the administration procedure depending on the needs and locality. From these inferences, the existing planning application and planning approval process in the state are similar to planning application and planning approval process in Peninsular Malaysia.