JOHOR BAHRU (Sept 25): The Johor government has postponed the development charge approved by the State Planning Committee (SPC), which should have been imposed from Sept 1 on developers who make changes to land use, Bernama reported yesterday.

State Housing and Local Government Committee chairman Datuk Md Jais Sarday said the development charge was postponed after requests from local authorities (PBT) that they were still not prepared implement the charge.

“We will discuss again with the SPC on Thursday whether to postpone or implement as there are some local authorities who are not yet prepared for the implementation.          

“They [PBTs] requested that the implementation be postponed until Jan 1, 2018. If we continue the implementation, we are worried that it will create problems for the PBTs who are not yet prepared as it involves auditing,” told reporters after visiting the Progressive Johor Expo site at Kota Iskandar, Bernama reported yesterday.

A similar charge had been imposed in other states including Selangor in 2010, Perak in 2012, and Kelantan and Kedah in 2015.

The charge will be based on the land location and usage which is 30% for international zone area land, 15% (City Council and PBT council status area) and 10% (PBT district status area).

Md Jais said in July that the charge was a form of payment under Section 32 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1976 (Act 172) imposed by the Local Planning Authority to applicants or land owners.

“For example, the charge will be imposed on a land which previously was registered as agriculture land to be changed to housing status, or a housing area to be expanded with construction which will increase the housing density or the increase of strata housing building level,” he explained.