GEORGE TOWN, Oct 23 — The developer of the affordable housing project where the deadly landslide occurred on Saturday has already started selling units of the project, according to a Penang state official.
Housing development and town and country planning committee chairman Jagdeep Singh Deo confirmed that all units in the project can only be sold to eligible affordable housing applicants.
“The developer has already obtained the APDL and I think they have started selling the units to the approved applicants,” he said when contacted today, referring to the Advertising Permit and Developers Licence.
He added that the whole project, consisting of 980 units, is under the state’s affordable housing guidelines as all are priced below RM400,000.
This means the units in the project can only be sold to eligible affordable housing applicants vetted by the Penang state government’s Selection Process Enhancement Committee (SPEC).
Amongst the criteria to be eligible to purchase affordable housing priced below RM400,000 is that the buyer must be a registered Penang voter and must have a combined household income of less than RM12,000 depending on categories of housing applied for.
The planning permission for the project, named Granito@Permai, was approved back in February 2015 and the building plans were approved in May 2015.
According to the work site notice board, Taman Sri Bunga Sdn Bhd was named as the main developer while BSG Property’s logo was also placed at the top of the board.
Hock Tan Architect is listed as the architect, Perunding KAA Sdn Bhd is the C & S engineer, GH Tag Consultancy as the M & E Engineer, Unitech QS consultancy as the quantity surveyor, Jurukur Mas as the land surveyor, Urban Garden Design as the landscape architect, Kamsen Construction Sdn Bhd as the earthwork contractor, Chuan Un Chye Sdn Bhd as the piling contractor and BSG Global Builders Sdn Bhd as the main contractor.
The project was for a 50-storey building consisting of 16 storeys of car park and utilities and 34 storeys of apartment units.
Attempts to contact BSG Property for comment failed as the reception insisted that her “bosses were not around”.
The commencement of work was approved on January 2016 and construction was still underway when the landslide occurred, killing 11 workers.
The state government has since announced the setting up of a state commission of inquiry into the incident while labelling it as a “worksite accident”.
The state government was heavily criticised by environmental groups, non-governmental organisations and state opposition parties for approving the project on a hillslope.
Even the Department of Environment stated that it had objected to the project before the project was approved.
