Johor
readies 50,290 low cost houses
utusan.com.my 10/5/2004
JOHOR BAHRU - Awang was very disappointed when his application for a
housing loan to buy a low cost flat in the outskirts of this city was not
approved.
Even though the three-room unit was in a five-storey walk-up flat he felt
it was just nice for his small family in view of its location as it was
not far from his place of work.
With a monthly income of less than RM2,000 a month and with a family,
Awang was considered qualified to buy the house. However because of his
outstanding car loan with a bank, his name had been blacklisted.
"The bank asked me to settle my car loan first before I could be
considered for the housing loan," he said.
His joy in finding the ideal house while visiting the "Direct Sale Day"
held every Saturday at Plaza Angsana was shortlived because of his own
attitude in not settling his car loan.
The Johor Government is organising this "Direct Sale Day" every Saturday
to make it easy for the people to select and buy houses which they can
afford by placing all agencies dealing with sale and purchase under one
roof on that day.
The State Housing Branch Office at the shopping complex will issue an
"eligible to buy house" certificate on the spot commensurate with the
person's income so that he can easily deal with the bank or finance
company, legal firm and the housing developer.
For this year,the Johor Government has set a monthly income of less than
RM2,000 for a person to buy a low cost house priced between RM25,000 and
RM28,000, a monthly income not exceeding RM3,000 to buy a low cost house
costing betwen RM30,000 and RM35,000, a monthly income of RM3,500 for
houses priced at RM50,000 and an income of RM4,500 a month for houses
priced at RM80,000.
However for people like Awang (who had not settled his car loan) and for
others worse off than him, the Johor Government has come up the Public
Housing Scheme For Rental, which is being developed in Tampoi, Tebrau,
Pasir Pelangi and Sri Stulang.
The project in Tampoi involves 2,252 houses and was being developed at a
cost of RM123.86 million, in Tebrau 2,000 houses (RM107 million), Pasir
Pelangi 960 houses (RM57.6 million) and Sri Stulang 1,500 houses (RM83.75
million).
These houses will be rented out at between RM100 and RM200 a month and
people like Awang will in about a year or two from now be able to move to
this house instead of living with his in-laws.
Menteri Besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman in his 2004 Budget speech said the
public housing scheme being developed by the private sector was still at a
slow pace because of the economic slowdown, lack of interest in flats
among the people and demand for housing being focused in urban areas.
The Johor Government plans to build 260,000 low and medium cost houses
throughout the state over the next few years, and this is considered
sufficient to meet demand for housing.
The Menteri Besar said so far 50,290 low and medium cost houses had been
completed, 27,174 units were in various stages of construction and 39,000
units had been approved but work had not started.
He said the state government's aspiration was to achieve the target of
"One House for One Family" for the wellbeing of all the people and the
focus is still on this inspite of the many delaying factors.
He said Johor was the first state to acquire private sector land - 73.5
hectares from SP Setia and 70.3 hectares from JCorp in the Tebrau area -
for building of low cost houses under the public housing scheme.
Squatters on river banks which belonged to the Drainage and Irrigation
Department (DID) in this city are aware of the government's efforts to
build low cost houses to resettle them.
Some of them offered various reasons for not moving into the low cost
houses claiming that the longer they squatted on government the better was
the chance for them to receive compensation from the government.
Many elected representatives whose constituencies had squatter settlements
felt that too much face had been given to these squatters who were
occupying state land meant for widening of rivers and roads.
"The Barisan Nasional's people friendly concept is at times a stumbling
block when dealing with these people ... it it not that there are no low
cost houses but the squatters want monetary compensation and also demand
that the prices of the houses be lowered further, they want the houses to
be close to their original squatter settlements and so many other things
they want ..," said an assemblyman.
One of the squatters had told a Barisan Nasional candidate for a state
assembly seat before the general election that the squatters were 100
percent BN supporters and so should be allowed to live and die in the
settlements.
"It does not matter if the house is new ... low cost or high cost ... only
our children will buy. We are old now and allow us to stay on here it does
not matter how we are labelled," he said.
If that is their attitude then the state government will be up against a
wall in its efforts to create more conducive living conditions for them.
The Johor Government's performance in this respect, is no doubt better
than many other states, where it had provided homes for 2,233 squatter
families in 12 housing eatates.
The Johor Government had undertaken insitu development of squatter
settlements, enabling 1,647 other squatter families to be relocated not
far from their original settlements in five housing estates so far.
The question of the government being not fair in the allocation of low
cost houses does not arise in Johor as the Menteri Besar himself had said
all the people in Johor were treated fairly irrespective of race and
political affiliation.
In view of this stand, Johor had the highest popular vote of 77 percent in
the 11th General Election and lost only one seat (Senggarang) to the
opposition that also due to a technical fault of the Wanita UMNO
candidate.
Even in that seat, the BN won 85 percent of the popular vote through its
victory in the parliamentary constituency which encompassed Senggarang. -
Bernama
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