Increase in contribution fee postponed
The Penang government has decided to postpone its decision to raise the contribution fee by developers who fail to build low-cost and low medium-cost housing until the year-end.
State Housing, Town and Country Planning Committee chairman Jagdeep Singh Deo said the state received complaints from Penang Real Estate and Housing Developers Association (Rehda) and other stakeholders after the new rate was imposed on Feb 1.
“Rehda wrote to me earlier and the state government had looked into the matter. I told the Chief Minister that instead of imposing the new rate immediately, the state should give the developers a moratorium.
“In the state exco meeting on Wednesday, we agreed to postpone the new rate until the end of the year so that they can have a transition period.
“However, I would like to remind developers to get ready for the new rate,” he said when asked about Rehda’s complaints at a press conference yesterday.
Jagdeep stressed that the state administration was a government for the people and not developers.
“You must understand the reason we have this contribution – the state government wants low-cost and low medium-cost units to be built.
“The contribution fee serves as a penalty to developers who do not build such housing units,” he said.
Jagdeep said the contribution was being raised so that the state government would have the funds to build low-cost and low medium-cost housing.
“If you (developers) don’t build, you pay. Then I (state government) build.
“And now, we have the Goods and Services Tax, the prices of steel are going up, and the construction cost of each unit is rising. That is the reason we increase the contribution from RM120,000 to RM150,000,” he said.
A Chinese daily quoted Penang Rehda chairman Datuk Toh Chin Leong as saying the association had met the state government over the new rate.
Toh said the increase would affect the real estate industry in the state, and the developers might transfer the additional cost to the house buyers.
The state government strictly enforces the requirement for developers to build 40% low medium-cost units on the island and 30% low-cost units on the mainland in any housing development projects.
Only in certain cases deemed fit by the State Planning Committee will the developers be allowed to pay a RM120,000 contribution per unit in lieu of not building such units.
Source: TheStar.com.my
waahh…..our state gov sayang the developers lor, somemore can postpone the new rates because developers say they have no money now. If I tell the state gov I have no money now to pay for the few parking fines that I got, I wonder if they would allow me to postpone the payments!
we should count our lucky stars that they are deferred. If rates are increased ultimately people will suffer.
DAP = DEVELOPER’s action party……. u dunno ?
Oh i see. Penang is a developer’s paradise, it seems. All the wheeling and dealing, laughing all the way to the bank, and then crying all the way to MACC.
This Penang state government is the worse ever. This coming election they will surely lose!
@freebie
Haha, don’t think so lah. I think they will still win, but maybe with a lower majority. They screw up some, like unreasonable parking fines, but I think they have also done many things right. They appear to listen to the people and fine-tune things based on feedback, although they remain stubborn and ineffective on parking fine issue.
What’s wrong with mppp parking fine? Rm15-25 still not low enough ?
PG ppl kiam siap drive big mercedes bmw but refuse to pay parking, summore illegal double park at roadside blocking the traffic…kena saman oredi also dont want to pay and kao beh kao bu… pui !
@Timmy
It’s not about the money, it’s about principle and making sense of it. I am sure if MBPP do a detailed analysis on all the fines, they would find that 90% of the fines were given due to illegal parking, yes, but not blocking traffic at all. There are plenty of “spots” in and around Georgetown where you don’t have a properly drawn parking box and yet you can park a car there WHOLE DAY without blocking the traffic at all. We shall not go into detail here as it would take months to discuss.
In short, here’s a summary :-
(1) Outstanding MBPP fines are really stacking up, with more and more and more people not paying.
(2) I personally know quite a number of obedient law abiding residents of Penang who are starting to struggle to make sense of it, and decided not to pay anymore.
(3) They feel it is completely non-sense when you see every day every hour lorries and trucks and tour buses parking/stopping/waiting along Weld Quay Rd/Penang Rd/Burma Rd causing REAL traffic jam, and yet were let to continue without FINES. Why should then people who DON’T CAUSE TRAFFIC JAM need to pay?
(4) That’s why with all these parking fines issued, it’s still not solving the problem of traffic jam caused by double parking, because the wrong people are being punished.