Seremban Sprawl

View seen from Office window, our neighbor's car park roof

After hearing construction noise for a long time, I looked out the window in the office to see where the sound was coming from and I saw a bulldozer clearing a site within view of our house, just past our neighbor's house and outside of our gated community. This site has been empty and had some trees on it which blocked our view of the houses behind it and a far view of some stores along Jalan Tok Ungku and even further, a low mountain range. The bulldozer had already taken a number of trees before I snapped the photo above.

Well, by the end of two days, all the trees were gone and the space is now leveled. I found out that they are going to build a new bungalow on the land.

Area with circle was cleared after we moved in

This is the second time we have seen a bulldozer, the first a short while after we moved into the house when they were clearing a large amount of trees not far away (image above). The trees that were there totally blocked our view of Jalan Tok Ungku and made the view in front from the big windows on the second story family room lots of trees and green and only the one bungalow house that sits below us. Now there is a break in the trees and we can see, and sometimes hear, faint traffic traveling on the road.

Arrows show where buses are stored.

When we were thinking about buying the house we were concerned not about the other areas that have already changed, but if there would be any construction in the tree surrounded longterm parking lot in front of our house to the right. It is currently being used as a place for parking buses in storage (they aren't moved regularly); so we thought/think the land might be more valuable if it is sold and used for building.

The area's de-treeing has happened sooner than we thought. It makes us want to get some trees and foilage growing in front of the house asap so that if there are more surprises, at least we can maintain our privacy on the property. All of this said, we still have a very good piece of freehold land by Malaysia standards which is quite quiet and private. Only a few cars a day travel on the road right in front of our house because it is within our small 23 house community.