Lessons Learned from Planning of Kota Bharu Waterfront City Centre – A Revisited

Abstract

Kota Bharu City Centre is located about 25 km from Sultan Ismail Putra Airport and 7km from Wakaf Bharu Train Station in the North. Kota Bharu City Centre was designated as the new city centre and waterfront of the Kota Bharu and Kelantan following the Government of Kelantan decision to relocate the new city centre outside the Kota Bharu the administrative capital of Kelantan on 30 May 2001 to decentralise and alleviate problem of congestion and high land value. The planning of Kota Bharu City Centre is planned to embrace two (2) main themes – totally new and integrated township and build top quality, affordable and uniquely-designed buildings of the city. It showcases a new approach adopted by Kelantan’s built waterfront and environment inbuilding future cities. It incorporates innovative ideas of community building, townscape, transportation planning, urban ecology and adopting new technologies in city building. Therefore, this paper seeks to draw lessons from Kelantan’s experience in realizing the vision of developing an extended integrated township around Kota Bharu taking into focus the Kelantan river waterfront development in its aspiration to transform Kota Bharu into a world-class city.