This comes after Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government (KPKT) Minister Noh Omar notified the Penang government that it would “consider” building them, subject to technical evaluation by the ministry.
State housing committee chairman Jagdeep Singh Deo said this was “finally some good news” as it rarely received any letters from the ministry.
He said this bode well for some 2,000 low-income earners on the waiting list for a PPR unit. He said Penang has the lowest number of PPR units in the country with 698 units to date.
“Despite being one of the top income tax contributors, contributing nearly RM6 billion to the national coffers, we have the lowest number of PPR units.
“After our application to the federal government in March for PPR units, we have finally received our answer.
“We hope the federal government can fulfil their promise to build more PPR in Penang and I also hope this is not just an election promise,” he said at a press conference which was also attended by Jelutong MP Jeff Ooi, in Komtar today.
A PPR housing unit typically ranges from 600 sq ft to 700 sq ft size with three rooms and two bathrooms. It is priced between RM30,000 and RM35,000 per unit in the peninsular and RM40,500 per unit in Sabah and Sarawak.
In the letter addressed to Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, Noh said in the case of Penang, a technical visit to the site offered by the state will be held to see if it was feasible to develop the housing project there.
“Once the site has been found to be suitable, the ministry will then formally ask for the land to be transferred to the national land commissioner.
“After which, we will proceed to apply for an allocation from the Economic Planning Unit, which is under the Prime Minister’s Department,” Noh said in his letter which was made available to the press today.
These units are exclusively built and offered by the ministry nationally to those earning a combined household income of RM3,000.
Jagdeep said in Penang, the state would insist that the soon to be built units be offered to those earning a combined income of RM1,500 instead.
In giving more details of the state land offered to the ministry to develop the project, he said it would be located on two parcels of land near Kota Giam, Jelutong.
The site is located next to the Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu Expressway, a coastal road on the east coast of Penang Island.
Jagdeep said the Kota Giam site had about 40 squatters and if the ministry goes through with the project, the ministry should be the one to resettle them.
Jagdeep added that in between the two parcels of land offered by the Penang government, there was a 14ha piece of land owned by Putrajaya.
He said the federal government should combine the 14ha piece of land with the two pieces of state land being offered, so that a larger PPR complex may be built.