Exco man: Other affordable housing concepts not suitable

Penang will not emulate Singapore or Hong Kong in its bid to provide affordable housing to the people, said state Housing, Town and Country Planning Committee chairman Jagdeep Singh Deo.

He said: “I do not want to be like Hong Kong or Singapore. There is a way to do it and I will teach them (developers) to do it the ‘Penang way’.

“We have our way of doing it without impacting the environment or making it more congested.

“Hong Kong’s development can go up to 300m high on hills but here we do not allow more than 76m high to take care of the greenery and hills.”

He was responding to a report in a Chinese daily, which said that developers had suggested to emulate Singapore’s shoebox units or Hong Kong’s micro apartment concept in the urban area with the support of infrastructure.

“Housing is not alone as it includes infrastructure. With the installation of the RM27bil Penang Transport Master Plan, it will open up many possibilities,” Jagdeep said on Saturday in Taman Free School.

He added that the most important issue now was to provide affordable housing and the developer should not ‘run away’ from doing it.

“Developers shouldn’t build all expensive units to make money.

“The reason why we are studying the possibility of an increase of density is because we want more affordable housing.

“No one is going to build cheaper houses if you want them to build the same number of units as expensive houses.

“However, we do not want the density to be too high or the price too expensive. It’s finding the right balance that is important,” he said.

Source: TheStar.com.my