To help address the need for affordable housing, Syarikat Perumahan Negara Berhad (SPNB) is willing to work with government departments and agencies that can provide land for development.
SPNB Managing Director Dr Kamarul Rashdan Salleh, noted that their “main condition for building affordable houses is that such houses must be built on state government or federal government owned-land.”
“In Penang, especially on the island, SPNB received many applications but we do not have the land but SPNB had cooperated with Penang Regional Development Authority (Perda) to build affordable houses before.”
In line with this, SPNB management plans to set up 24 satellite branches nationwide including in Sarawak and Sabah “to improve the efficiency of SPNB in carrying out its responsibility for the local community.”
In addition, Kamarul Rashdan also noted that SPNB is searching for land in Penang to cater to the needs of the people for affordable houses. Previously, the developer has already built 556 affordable houses in Penang, which were sold at RM90,000 each.
“Currently there are 641 applications for affordable houses in Penang of which 222 units have been approved and built with only 32 units still under construction and are expected to be completed by the third quarter of this year with each unit costing RM65,000 of which RM20,000 is subsidised by the government.”
Moreover, SPNB also helped revive three abandoned housing projects involving 2,400 housing units in Sebarang Perai Selatan (SPS), Bayan Lepas and Teluk Air Tawar.
Currently, the developer is awaiting government land allocation to build 115 housing units for Penang flood victims.
Farah Wahida, Editor of PropertyGuru, wrote this story. To contact her about this or other stories email farahwahida@propertyguru.com.my
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