This article first appeared in City & Country, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on February 22, 2021 - February 28, 2021

EcoWorld Development Group Bhd will be unveiling new Co-Home units at its Eco Grandeur township in Bandar Puncak Alam, Selangor, and Eco Horizon township in Bandar Cassia, Penang, in the next two months. Both townships are joint-venture projects with the Employees Provident Fund (EPF).

At Eco Grandeur, the developer is planning to launch the first 264 of the total 484 Co-Home units located within the 81-acre Regent Garden residential collection of the township in early April. The leasehold project has a gross development value (GDV) of RM228 million and will offer 12 three-bedroom, two-bathroom layouts, with built-ups ranging from 1,001 to 1,109 sq ft. Prices start from RM395,000 and the monthly maintenance fee is estimated at 15 sen psf.

Up north, the Co-Home units will be located within the Camdon Collection of Eco Horizon. The RM249 million leasehold project, spanning 48.71 acres, will offer 459 units in total, of which 112 units will be launched in mid-March. The units will come in four typical 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom layouts, with built-ups ranging from 904 to 958 sq ft, as well as a 22ft by 54ft double-storey co-home layout with 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms and a built-up of 1,313 sq ft. Prices start from RM426,000 and the monthly maintenance fee is estimated to start from RM180.

EcoWorld divisional general manager Ho Kwee Hong, via a virtual interview with City & Country, explains that the stratified Co-Home unit is in essence a single level of a double-storey terraced house. “It is typically a landed terraced house but split into two units [with] the same footprint,” she says.

While a Co-Home may be similar to a townhouse, she notes that the main differences are the number of floors and car parks as well as the width of the unit. “Townhouses are usually 2.5 to 3 storeys with a maximum of two to three car park bays per lot. For landed homes, we feel that most people would be willing to walk up only three storeys and if they had a choice, it would be two storeys. So, we made the Co-Home look and feel like a double-storey landed home with four side-by-side, covered car parking bays in front of each house — two bays to each unit. The Co-Home is also wider at 35ft — like that of a traditional semi-detached house — than the typical townhouse’s 24ft to 26ft,” she explains.

According to Ho, EcoWorld’s Co-Home, which stands for “co-creation homes”, is inspired by the co-living trend. “However, we believe the co-living trend may be more suited for those who have just migrated to a new city with higher density like Singapore, the UK, Hong Kong and China, but not for families. So, we have put together all of our customers’ different lifestyle and generational needs into the design of our Co-Home.”

With the Co-Home, EcoWorld aims to address two main needs of aspiring homebuyers — a landed living lifestyle and affordability. “Living in a landed house is a dream of many young families, but affordability is always an issue.

“A lot of our potential customers say our homes are priced out of their budget but they love the environment and gated-and-guarded landed strata concept [at our townships].

“We want to create a spacious landed setting that many young families, graduates, individuals and professionals earning less than RM3,000 to RM4,000 monthly as well as those looking at retirement are able to afford,” Ho says.

The Co-Home, she adds, is also ideal for multi-family, multigenerational needs. “We’ve had many potential purchasers who are siblings and families who were looking at side-by-side units, or even one on the ground floor and another on the first floor, as families with elderly members usually prefer a ground-floor unit. As one unit is around 1,000 sq ft, getting two units would give you 2,000 sq ft of space, which comprises six bedrooms, two big kitchens, and living and dining spaces, all under RM1 million.

“Two units on the first floor share a common stair access and the first-floor units are slightly cheaper than the ground-floor ones,” she notes.

Ho adds that the adjoining yard of each corner- or end-lot unit will belong to the ground-floor unit as an accessory parcel, whereas the first-floor unit will have a utility room on the ground floor. “This is to provide convenience to first-floor residents to keep things like umbrellas, bicycles, baby strollers and car accessories,” she says.

Introduced in 2019, the 81-acre Regent Garden is the fourth residential phase in the 1,400-acre mixed-use township development, Eco Grandeur. Apart from the Co-Home units, the gated-and-guarded Regent Garden also comprises 592 two-storey Garden Home units that are 24ft by 55ft with a GDV of RM435 million. The units are priced from RM701,000.

In addition to the landscaping in its surroundings, Regent Garden will also have a 11,162 sq ft community centre with one to two acres of external area. The community centre will house the management office and facilities such as barbecue pits, a camp site, community hall, gym, playground, 15ft linear garden, surau and kindergarten.

Within Eco Grandeur, EcoWorld has handed over three residential parcels — Avenham, Graham and Laman Haris — and one commercial parcel — Esplanad, says Ho. The residential parcels, comprising approximately 2,800 units of two-storey garden and terraced homes, were handed over in 2019 and 2020 whereas the 2- and 3-storey shopoffices of Esplanad were handed over last October. “About 50% of the ground-floor units are tenanted,” Ho notes.

An ongoing project at Eco Grandeur is Norton, which comprises 773 bungalows, semidees and garden homes, with prices ranging from RM1.1 million to RM1.8 million, she says.

Meanwhile, since last December, residents at Eco Grandeur have been enjoying the convenience of the newly opened Jaya Grocer supermarket at Grandeur Labs. “We have quite a lot of established amenities in the area,” Ho remarks.

Grandeur Labs, which opened in June 2018 before the first residents moved in, is Eco Grandeur’s lifestyle commercial hub. It offers around 20 retail, F&B and services, including Caring Pharmacy, Satay Lab, Mail Boxes Etc and Gong Cha, as well as a TREX bike park and space for community engagement.Activities such as starlight movies, a farmers’ market, weekly fitness programme and kids’ carnival had been held before the pandemic.

Other notable amenities in the vicinity include Tesco, Econsave, OCBC and UOB banks and the upcoming Hospital UiTM in Bandar Puncak Alam, as well as Hospital Sungai Buloh.

Eco Grandeur is 15 to 30 minutes by car from Setia Alam, Bukit Jelutong, Sungai Buloh and Kota Damansara and is connected via the Kuala Lumpur-Kuala Selangor Expressway (LATAR), Guthrie Corridor Expressway, North-South Expressway and, in future, the West Coast Expressway and DASH.

The Camdon Collection is the third residential collection in the 300-acre Eco Horizon mixed-use township development, after Ashton terraced homes and Brydon bungalows and semidees. Ashton has been completed and received vacant possession (VP) this month, while Brydon is expecting VP in 2024, notes Ho.

Apart from the Co-Home units, the Camdon Collection also comprises 294 Garden Home units of 24ft by 56ft and 20ft by 60ft to be launched in 3Q this year, notes Ho.

“One of Camdon’s unique selling points is the short walking distance to the Eco Horizon Clubhouse, and the green landscapes, boulevards and gardens that welcome you home. There will also be landscaping between the Co-Home and Garden Home parcels as well as outdoor gyms, playgrounds, gazebos and jogging tracks,” says Ho.

According to her, the clubhouse will be completed in two phases, with the first phase opening in 3Q2021. “We are providing popular facilities such as an Olympic-sized swimming pool, barbecue area, gym as well as a childcare centre, with which we have already signed a tenancy. This will be an added convenience for parents living in the area,” she says.

Its location in the 6,000-acre Bandar Cassia puts Eco Horizon next to major highways, including the North-South Expressway and the Second Penang Bridge. It is also about 15 minutes to Simpang Ampat, 25 minutes to Penang Island and 30 minutes to the Penang International Airport.

Notable completed amenities in Bandar Cassia include the Design Village outlet mall, Ikea Batu Kawan as well as schools such as UOW Malaysia KDU Penang University College (Batu Kawan campus) and The Ship Campus. The area will also be home to Ikano and SJK(C) Kuang Yu, which are targeting completion within the next two years, as well as Tenby and GEMS international schools and Columbia Asia Hospital in the future.

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