Friday 29 Mar 2024
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This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on August 17, 2018

CYBERJAYA: The Real Estate and Housing Developers’ Association Malaysia (Rehda) hopes the proposed single entity to oversee affordable housing will be different from previous bodies as there is more urgency now to ensure the issues faced are addressed promptly.

Rehda immediate past president Datuk Seri Fateh Iskandar Mohamed Mansor said the association is pleased with the housing and local government’s plan to establish the single entity.

“We developers are looking forward to the one-stop agency, but we hope it will be unlike other agencies before this. We hope this time, the agency will really provide developers with the guidelines and engagement,” he said in his keynote address at the Sustainable Housing Futures Conference yesterday.

The suggestion for a single entity was mooted earlier this year by Bank Negara Malaysia as part of its five-pronged strategy to effectively bridge the affordable-housing gap in the country. The central bank said the unit should be established to spearhead affordable-housing initiatives among the various government, state agencies and players alike.

“At the end of the day, it should work with us as we can provide [the industry’s] input,” said Fateh Iskandar. “After all, we carry the burden [as developers], as well as that of consultants and bankers too.”

Rehda Institute, in its report on affordable housing last month, proposed the formation of a special-purpose central agency under the housing ministry “to redefine the roles of the public and private sectors in providing affordable homes under a holistic master planning”.

Fateh Iskandar yesterday also addressed the challenges in the development of sustainable housing, in particular raising the need to strengthen the enforcement of sustainable building.

“Instead of passing more new laws, we should instead tweak or re-legislate certain framework for green technology. We already have the laws, but we just need to work on them to make it more efficient and friendly.

“There’re a lot of building codes and regulation but none for green technology or building. So it’s a matter of educating ourselves,” he added.

Housing and Local Government Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin, in her speech at the conference, said sound public policy is essential to address the affordable-housing challenges.

“We have advocated that this should reside with a central authority that oversees and coordinates affordable-housing initiatives for the country. This will promote greater strategic and operational cohesion at the national level,” said Zuraida in the speech read out by the ministry’s deputy secretary-general of policy, Dr Mary Wong Lai Lin.

“Regulatory processes to reduce the cost of supplying affordable homes will be reviewed and streamlined,” said Zuraida. The ministry has previously said that it expected the single entity to be completed by year end.

The minister added that there is also a need for an integrated database on housing supply and demand, as well as for innovative financing models to be further developed.

“Current intervention measures largely focus on subsiding homebuyers or direct provision of housing. Over the longer term, we need to have more sustainable alternatives that combine private and public funding for affordable-housing development and investment. In other parts of the world, this has replaced traditional methods of financing the supply of public housing,” she said.

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