Deal for owners of stalled project
The Star 6/4/2005 By Dharmender Singh
THE Newgate Avenue Apartments buyers meeting held on Sunday ended with a
sigh of relief for many buyers of units at the project that has been
stalled since 2002.
The meeting, held at the 3K Complex in Subang Jaya, was aimed at getting
the buyers’ approval to give the Newgate Avenue Apartment Buyers Committee
the mandate to pursue a deal with a new investor willing to take over the
project.
Consultants PriceWaterhouse-Cooper executive director Subra E. Gounder
drew loud applause from the crowd of over 700 buyers at the meeting when
he announced that a company was interested in taking over the
60%-completed project without any additional costs loaded on the buyers.
Subang Jaya assemblyman Datuk Lee Hwa Beng, who was also present, said the
buyers were fortunate that the commercial units and some apartment units
at the project had yet to be sold by the original developer.
He said this had helped in providing additional financial means for the
new company that was willing to take over the project, and this was the
main reason the buyers would not have to make additional payments to see
their project completed.
Lee said the buyers would however have to make certain sacrifices, such as
waiving their right to make any late delivery claims against the new
investor and also give up a 10-year transferable RCI membership entitling
buyers to a week’s stay locally or at any of the over 3,400 holiday
resorts worldwide that was part of original purchase deal.
He said the main agenda on the minds of the buyers now should be to have
the project restarted as soon as possible, and this depended on how fast
they could return the consent forms that had been handed out to them.
He said only with the consent of owners of 75% of the property that makes
up Newgate Avenue Apartments could the buyers committee sign a contract
with the new investor and the details be outlined.
A second meeting, he said, would be held when the details were ready and
the buyers would then vote to decide if they agreed with the proposed
changes, such as the rights that they would have to give up.
Only then would contrstuction restart. Buyers started purchasing the units
from 1998, only to see work stop in 2001, less than a year before the
mid-2004 delivery date, and it was finally declared abandoned in Nov 2004.
The project boasted a larger than Olympic-sized landscaped swimming pool,
two jacuzzis, open air cafetaria/bistro, gym, two squash courts,
cinemarette, business centre and playground together with Internet and
intranet infrastructure and housekeeping services.
The one-room units were priced from RM66,800, the two-room units from
RM88,800 and three-room units from RM132,800. It also offered three
shopping complex levels covering 250,000 sq ft of retail space.
Most buyers have been paying banks between RM500 and RM900 monthly as
interest on monies already released to the original developer, Solarglow
Sdn Bhd.
Lee said after the last electoral redelineation exercise the area was no
longer under his constituency but he decided to continue to help the
buyers because he had been involved in the efforts to revive the project
from the start.
He said the company that had agreed to take over the project had asked for
a 30-month period to complete the project, saying it would have to seek
approvals from the various local authorities and also utility companies
before restarting work.
“But since I am also a councillor with MPSJ I will work together with the
parties concerned to get the approvals faster,” he said.
Lee also explained that although he had promised to find a solution within
a year after meeting buyers in 2003, it had taken longer because the
original developer had been uncooperative.
“We needed the details and plans for the project but the company failed to
provide the records,” he said.
He said the records were important to allow the consultants to come up
with estimates of the work and costs involved to complete the project,
while companies interested in taking over the project wanted to know the
details before making an offer.
Gounder said the consultants managed to get in touch with buyers of 900
units, and hoped the buyers of the remaining 1,072 units would contact
them soon.
He said a hotline for buyers of the units had been set up by
PricewaterhouseCoopers and the remaining buyers were urged to contact
03-2382-0332 as soon as possible.
Buyers committee chairman Pritpal Singh said buyers also did not have to
worry that the new contractor would abandon the project because
Pricewaterhouse Cooper and bridging financier RHB Bank would together
ensure that funds would be release according to the rate of work at the
site.
Pritpal Singh, who is also a member of the Buyers Committee for the
abandoned Rhythm Avenue Apartment project in USJ 19, said a similar
meeting with buyers for that project would be organised at 9.30am on April
10, also at the 3K Complex. |
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