Idle land given to private sector to build affordable homes

The Star, Tuesday July 3, 2012

By LOH FOON FONG
foonfong@thestar.com.my

(From URL: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/7/3/nation/11590378&sec=nation)

KUALA LUMPUR: Federal land is being used by the Government to develop affordable housing for middle-income households earning less than RM5,000.

Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Seri Chor Chee Heung said 42,078 affordable housing units (costing between RM150,000 and RM300,000) would be built in 20 strategic locations in the Klang Valley, Rawang and Seremban.

“The Government still has large tracks of unused land and has handed it to the private sector to build affordable houses for the middle-income group,” he said in his speech during the 3rd Annual Housing Projects Conference yesterday.

He said the public and private partnership helped reduce the housing burden borne by the Government.

Chor said this was in view of the struggles that middle-class households which make up 76% of the population have in owning homes in cities.

Currently, 71% of the population or as many as 20 million people, reside in urban areas and the demand for housing, besides rising construction cost and shortage of land, had led to the increase of property prices, he said.

Chor said the Federal Government had also put in a lot of effort in building low-cost houses for those whose household income was less than RM2,500 a month.

The Government hoped to build more than 54,200 low-cost houses by the end of the year, he said.
Chor said state governments also played a crucial role in overcoming the problem of providing affordable housing.

They could sacrifice 20% to 30% of their land to be used for building low-cost houses, he added.

“If the state government is willing to come up with the land, the Federal Government will pump in the cost of building the units,” he said.

After building the units, they would be handed back to the state government to manage, he said.