Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Fulfil your responsibilities, developers told

This article is from
http://thestar.com.my/metro/story.asp?file=/2008/10/20/central/2311511&sec=central

Monday October 20, 2008

Fulfil your responsibilities, developers told
By THO XIN YI


DEVELOPERS should fulfil their responsibility of building low-cost houses before proceeding with other projects.

Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ) councillor Tan Jo Hann said he discovered that some developers had not built the low-cost houses as promised, although the development order had been approved some years ago.

“It’s a national policy that 30% of all housing projects should be dedicated to low-cost houses.

“It’s a social responsibility for all developers but some of them shy away from this duty because low-cost houses bring little or no profit,” Tan said.

According to a source, there are about 60 low-cost housing projects in areas under the jurisdiction of the MPSJ, comprising about 27,000 units.

As of July, there were about 7,000 units that had not been completed.

Tan questioned the reason for the delay, as the developers involved were active in other projects.

“In my opinion, new initiatives, such as changing plans of existing projects, should be frozen until they carry out their duty to build low-cost houses,” he said.

He added that some developers had given the excuse of low demand to amend their low-cost housing plans.

“For example, they ask to convert a number of units from their low-cost housing projects to medium-cost houses.

“I do not agree with this because low-cost houses in the Subang Jaya municipality can cater to squatters or urban poor from other areas,” Tan said.

He proposed that a meeting between the developers and the council be called to discuss the issue.

“There’s a need to revive low-cost housing projects. At the meeting, the developers can tell us the problems they face in building such houses and we will then see how to provide assistance,” he said.

Nonetheless, he added that the council had been diligent in ensuring the developers fulfilled their responsibility.

MPSJ president Datuk Adnan Md Ikshan, when contacted, said such projects did not pose a problem to MPSJ.

“Developers have to fulfil their commitments. We check the terms before approving their applications.

“They do not necessarily need to build the low-cost houses in their projects first, as the projects are often built in phases.

“Similarly, they do not have to build all low-cost houses at one go,” he said.

He said that all low-cost housing projects in the municipality were progressing, and the council was monitoring them closely.

“We have records of the projects’ progress,” Adnan said.

He said the only problem was abandoned low-cost housing projects by developers which had gone bust.

“However, such projects have been revived recently,” he said