Lawmaker Song Pek Kei urged the government to use the current “slowdown” in the real estate sector to establish measures to facilitate the acquisition of property in the private market, “encourage” the banking sector to provide better conditions on housing loans and, by contrast, to increase taxation on landlords who possess several properties.
Ms Song, speaking at the Legislative Assembly (AL) plenary session yesterday afternoon, called on the administration to “encourage banks to increase the percentage of the loan, or grant interest-free loans, to first time homebuyers in order to help residents gain access to their own homes” – a wish that has become, especially for the younger generations, “a goal impossible to achieve”.
“The taxes on housing for the acquisition of the third and following properties should be heavily penalized, in order to increase the costs of ownership so that scarce land resources stop being utilized as an instrument of speculation,” she added.
Housing continued to be the main concern in yesterday’s AL debate. In a spoken enquiry, Au Kam San addressed the Pearl Horizon controversy, saying that those who bought properties there have “no reason to panic.” According to him, the “responsibility should be assigned to the project builder that let 25 years pass without completing the project on the granted land”.
The lawmaker says that the government should simply follow the law and “after the land reclamation process, it should proceed as soon as possible with the public tender for a new concession”. Likewise, the authorities should make sure the new developer will continue the project “according to the original plan, and that the promoter assumes the responsibilities stipulated in the agreements already made with the buyers who already purchased some of the structures under construction”.
Mr Au claims that this solution takes into account the public interest and the interests of the two thousand owners of units that were not completed on time.
Also according to the same lawmaker, the process can be simplified without having to exclude the current developer. “There is no need to exclude anyone from the public tender”, he stated. “The first developer can apply again and he will be at an advantage because he has more information about the project than the other competitors and will certainly want to get the land again to continue the project “. But he warned that could only be done “if the developer pays again for the land in a public tender”.
Au Kam San added that this case is very important because “similar cases are on the verge of happening in the near future, and the resolution that the government will choose will be a reference for the future”.
Separately, Chui Sai Peng showed his disappointment with the progress of the Creative Industries Park, a project in which he was one of the instigators back in 2000 that intended to transform St Lazarus district into a pedestrian-only area entirely dedicated to the promotion and development of the creative industries. However, 15 years later, “that project continues not to have a soul”.
Mr Chui added that the situation is “really worrying and unfortunate, especially in this critical phase of economic restructuring”, giving several examples.
In the plenary debate and the third topic on the agenda, a proposal from lawmaker Ng Kuok Cheong that aimed to discuss the topics of land recovery from unused and expired projects, new land reclamation for public housing, as well as the reestablishment of the score system to assign public housing to residents was rejected with the majority of lawmakers (25-6) voting against.
The reason given by several legislators had to do with the earlier promise made by the government to develop public housing on those land lots, together with the fact that the new draw system was approved by the AL in response to the infectivity of the previous score system. According to them, it made no sense to debate taking a step back. RM
al unanimously approves condominium regulations
Yesterday’s AL plenary session saw the legislators discuss and unanimously approve the regime related to the management of common parts of condominiums and on the law regulating commercial condominium activity.
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