GEORGE TOWN, Dec 5 — All races, not just Malays, are feeling the pain of being unable to own a home in Penang, a Pakatan Rakyat state councilor admitted today the heels of a complaint by an Umno delegate at the party’s Youth assembly.
Penang state executive councillor for housing and town and country planning Jagdeep Singh Deo said housing prices affects everyone across the board, which was why the PR state had drawn up a scheme to help low- and middle-income earners buy their own homes.
“We don’t deny that house prices are going up which is why we have put into place affordable housing policies,” he said in a press conference after attending the officiating of the Hexagon Tech Park.
The Datuk Keramat state assemblyman slammed Umno Youth for racialising an issue that he said has nothing to do with ethnicity.
“I also can’t afford a house here now, why say targeted at Malays? Even a Singh could not afford,” he said.
Yesterday, Umno Penang delegate Mohd Nashrol Hisham Abdullah claimed Malays in the state are now “desperate” and are forced to buy homes in Kedah, describing it as a result of the cruel governance of the DAP.
Jagdeep refuted such allegations while listing out various measures the state government had introduced to increase home ownership amongst low income earners in the state.
The Penang administration has come under fire by its political foes, Umno and also today by MCA, recently and was blamed for the escalating house prices in the state that had rendered most properties unaffordable to a majority of Penangites.
To arrest this problem, Jagdeep said the state has a very strict policy on housing where developers are required to build 30 per cent of low and low medium cost housing units for every housing project.
“We have also introduced a policy that allows developers to build higher density projects provided that 25 per cent of the units are affordable housing units,” he said.
Other than that, the state had allocated RM500 million to build close to 20,000 units of affordable housing in the state.
Last week, in the state budget 2014 announced by Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, the state introduced a Shared Ownership Scheme to eligible house buyers of a low cost housing project in Seberang Perai in which the state will provide a 30 per cent interest-free funding to purchasers.
The state also imposed conditions on affordable housing which is categorised as houses priced below RM400,000 for housing units on the island and RM250,000 for units on the mainland where only first time house buyers can purchase affordable housing units.
Lim had said the state could not control escalating house prices as these are effects of market forces but the introduction of these policies will ensure first time home buyers could still buy their own homes in the state.
