Special bank for affordable, low-cost houses

KUALA LUMPUR: The Barisan Nasional (BN), in its manifesto for the 14th General Election (GE14), pledges to continue to strive for the betterment of the people by establishing a special bank to facilitate loans for affordable and low-cost houses costing RM300,000 and below.

Themed ‘With BN for A Greater Malaysia’, the manifesto, which outlines the party’s plan for the next five years, also promises to grant tax exemptions on housing rental income.

It also pledges to provide a Public Housing Assistance Scheme to assist renters who may be categorised as poor or persons with disabilities (PWDs).

BN also pledges to introduce a single entity to synchronise all affordable housing initiatives, including the monitoring of construction work.

The manifesto pledges to rebuild people’s housing and low-cost housing that are more than 20 years old using green and modern technology. Among the other pledges are: * Providing a special fund worth RM500 million to encourage innovation and empower Industrial Building System (IBS) entrepreneurs.

* Providing tax incentives or development funds to encourage banks and housing developers to offer rentto-own schemes.

* Developing under-utilised government quarters, buildings and land for affordable housing and mixed development projects.

* Providing opportunities to government retirees and their children to purchase units of 1Malaysia Public Servants Housing (PPA1M) at prices ranging from RM150, 000 to RM300, 000.

* Constructing more Felda community houses, especially for the second and third generation of settlers.

* Extending the stamp duty exemption period for abandoned housing projects that are in the process of being revived.

* Building more affordable and low-cost housing projects on idle Malay reserve, ‘wakaf’ and ‘baitulmal’ land.

* Increasing the capacity of Housing Assistance Programmes to restore and repair dilapidated houses in rural areas.

* Upgrading longhouses in Sarawak, water-houses in Sabah, Orang Asli houses and estate workers housing units in the peninsula.

* Allocating special funds for Joint Management Bodies (JMB) and Joint Management Committees (JMC) for the upgrading of strata buildings.

* Increasing the claim limit under the Housing and Management Tribunal from RM50,000 to RM100,000.

* Expanding the government’s authority to revive abandoned housing projects from the current limit of RM70,000 to RM120,000. This involves 21 abandoned projects and 2,794 units with an allocation of RM123 million.

* Assisting buyers of the 50,000 housing units that have fallen victim to unlicensed housing developers.

* Making Key Performance Indicators (KPI) compulsory in the construction of affordable housing projects by housing development companies that receive government investment.

* Establishing a conflict resolution tribunal to settle any disputes that involve public housing.

* Launching a National Public Housing Management Corporation that will be responsible with monitoring and in managing public housing issues that involving housing quality and current needs, as well as determining fitness for occupation.

* Ending the policy of Bumiputera lot discounts for property valued at RM1 million and above.

* Welfare and wellbeing of security forces personnel.

* Allocating 1,800 housing units under the One Personnel, One House (SASaR) programme for Malaysian Armed Forces (ATM) veterans.

* Constructing 45,000 units of ‘Rumah Keluarga Angkatan Tentera’ homes.

* Establishing the 1Malaysia Veteran Home Repair Programme with a target of 1,800 recipients by 2020.

* Allocating 10,000 PPA1M housing units for police personnel.