6,000 homes by 2020

JOHOR BARU: The Johor government is studying ways to strengthen the affordable housing scheme and aims to build 6,000 homes by 2020.

“Johor is able to build many such (affordable) homes compared with other states due to the cooperation between the government and developers in which the houses are subsidised.

“This is why the state government aims to build an additional 40,000 units by 2023 to make the total of 100,000 affordable homes within the next six years,” Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Khaled Nordin said after presenting keys to recipients of affordable homes in Taman Sierra Perdana yesterday.

The state government will improve the scheme’s application process for the public to fully benefit from the housing policy.

“The state government will give priority to those on the waiting list to get the affordable homes because houses are a basic need of the rakyat,” he said.

On a separate note, he announced that action will be taken against owners who rent out their houses, which is an abuse of the scheme.

“We found out, through various websites, that these irresponsible owners have place advertisements to rent out their houses.

“Affordable houses should not be sold where if the owners sell it, they will be following the market price and, thus, double their profit,” he said, adding the state government is mulling a move to seize the “rented” homes from the “qualified” owners.

“This scheme is supposed to help the rakyat but some have abused it, which shows they are not qualified to get the homes in the first place,” he said.