Get your facts straight on Penang housing, says Jagdeep

GEORGE TOWN (July 22): You should get your facts straight before pointing fingers at the state government, Penang Executive Councillor for Housing, Town and Country Planning Jagdeep Singh Deo has told Penang Gerakan Youth Legal and Public Complaints Bureau chief Jason Loo after the latter alleged there was a loophole in the state’s affordable housing scheme guidelines where developers were not meeting stipulated quotas.

According to Jagdeep, the approval given for The Clovers project by Asia Green Construction Sdn Bhd was based on old affordable housing guidelines prior to the introduction of its successor in August 2014.

“Total development component is 892 units. Affordable unit requirements, based on the old guidelines, are 20% or 178.4 units out of the total 892 units,” Jagdeep said in a text message to The Malaysian Insider.

There are three categories under the old guidelines, in which there is a quota requirement set for private housing development projects at 5%, 10% and 5% priced at RM200,000, RM300,000 and RM500,000 out of the total number of units.

Jason was seeking clarification with regards to the total number of affordable units that the developer was compelled to build following guidelines from the state.

“From the information I gathered, only 7.5% or 68 units for the RM300,000 category were launched by the developer. Where is the balance of 2.5% or 21 units to make it 10%?” Loo said in a press conference at Penang Gerakan Headquarters.

He also noted that when the affordable housing scheme was launched in August 2014, the unit sizes introduced were 750sqft for a RM200,000 unit, 850sqft for a RM300,000 unit and 900sqft for a RM400,000 unit.

“When I did a survey on The Clovers project, there was one unit at 699sqft for the RM200,000 category and 56 units at 776sqft for the RM300,000 category. How did the sizes shrink? Was this project approved under the old or new guideline?”

Jagdeep said that there was no size control for projects approved prior to the new guideline.

“Only recently, the state decided to not allow units below 650sqft to be sold for projects approved under the old guideline.

“Therefore, there is no issue with regards to the unit sizes at The Clovers, since all are more than 650sqft,” Jagdeep said.

Based on the new affordable housing guideline introduced in August 2014, the state government has capped the sizes and prices of affordable units at 750sqft, 850sqft and 900sqft priced at RM200,000, RM300,000 and RM400,000 respectively.