Issues and challenges surround the National Housing Policy aka Dasar Perumahan Negara (2018 – 2025)

Contributed by Datuk Chang Kim Loong

Both the Tenth and Eleventh Malaysia Plan (MP) have stated that housing development will focus on the provision of adequate housing as well as ensuring a safe, healthy and harmonious living environment equipped with complete public amenities and quality recreational facilities.

A National Housing Policy (NHP) was then drafted and launched in the year 2018 to provide the direction and basis for the planning and development of the housing sector by all relevant ministries, departments and agencies at the federal, state and local levels as well as the private sector.

To ensure that the housing sector will achieve the desired development and positively contribute to continuous economic growth, the NHP is expected to be able to solve the problems and challenges pertaining to the quality of construction, the issue of abandoned housing projects, affordability to own or rent houses via an effective distribution system in the people’s housing programme.

To fulfil these needs, factors such as affordability of the buyers, development cost and selling price persistently influence the supply and demand in the housing sector. 

Based on the current situation, housing development is concentrated in urban and suburban areas, where the purchasing power is higher and the market is extensive. To address the current housing needs, both the government and the private sector must play their respective roles to fulfil their social obligations, especially to the low-income (B40) and middle-income groups (M40). 

The then Ministry of Housing and Local Government, now renamed Ministry of Local Government Development (KPKT), has been monitoring the implementation of housing development projects by the private sector and enforcing the Housing Development Act (Control and Licensing) 1966 [Act 118] and its Regulations to ensure housing projects are implemented according to the schedule and completed within the stipulated timeframe. 

KPKT has also been taking steps to revive abandoned projects through the Special Task Force for Revival of Abandoned Housing Projects (STF). The STF focuses on efforts in reviving abandoned housing projects, solidifying the legal aspects and ensuring more effective enforcement, as well as establishing the direction and policy of the housing industry.

Issues and challenges

To ensure that the housing sector achieves healthy development and continuously contributes positively to the nation’s economic growth, various issues and challenges related to the housing sector need to be effectively addressed. 

• Among the issues identified are: 
• Quality of the houses built. 
• Abandoned housing projects. 
• Affordability and accessibility of the people to own or rent houses.
• Demand exceeding supply for low-cost and medium-cost houses.
•  Construction of Affordable Public Housing (APH) at non-strategic locations. 
• Distribution of APH.

Although most houses built have met the minimum quality requirements set, there are still developments which have not met the standard requirements and that leads to low-quality construction. The use of low-quality construction materials and lack of skilled workers also contribute to the low quality of houses built. Low usage of state-of-the-art technology in construction and high dependency on unskilled and cheap foreign manpower also contribute to the decline in the quality of houses.

Before a housing project commences, it has to go through the application and approval processes at the land office and the local authority. KPKT is responsible for the issuance of housing development licences and advertisement and sale permits after the development order and building plans are approved by the local authority. If there is a glitch in any of the processes, the whole system or development process would be disrupted and the project would not start on time.

Weaknesses in control, monitoring and enforcement

There are various laws which apply to housing development. Amongst them are the National Land Code 1965 (KTN), Housing Development Act (Control and Licensing) 1966 [Act 118], Local Government Act 1976 [Act 171], Town and Country Planning Act 1976 [Act 172], Street, Drainage and Building Act 1974 [Act 133] and a host of other state regulations and land laws. The need to abide by these legal aspects and regulations is vital to be understood and complied with to ensure housing projects are implemented based on the issued approvals. However, there are still weaknesses in the control, implementation and enforcement of these laws.

In building APH, there are several agencies and bodies involved such as PR1MA Corporation Malaysia, Syarikat Perumahan Negara Bhd (SPNB), statutory bodies and State Economic Development Corporations (SEDC). Coordination amongst these agencies is needed so that the construction and distribution of these houses can be executed in a more orderly, systematic and just manner in each state. In this regard, the NHP proposes that the role and collaboration among agencies and related bodies are further strengthened.

The implementation of the NHP Action Plan (2018-2025) will involve various ministries, departments, agencies and the private sector responsible for various aspects of the housing sector as a whole. The main agencies (lead agencies) and implementing agencies for each action and implementation period have also been identified. The implementation period set out under the NHP Action Plan (2018-2025) is as follows:

One of the five policy statements that was outlined was NHP 3.3: Encouraging the BTS concept in the housing provision system whereupon a timeline was formulated for year 2019 (transition from Sell Then Build (STB) to BTS 10:90 concept) and year 2023 (transition from STB to absolute BTS ie 0:100 concept). However, it appears that the timeline imposed in the blueprint of the NHP has not been adhered to.

Is the blueprint on track?

Bad apples

Abandoned housing projects in the country continue to be a dampener to the hopes of many house buyers and their families from realising their dream of being owners of their own homes.

Its continued presence remains a thorn in the housing industry that does not bode well for the well-being of the affected house buyers; neither the lack of and lax enforcement program by KPKT nor the reputation of the errant developers.

Although the majority of developers have fulfilled their delivery promises to house buyers, there are still some bad apples that have reneged on their end of the bargain when they abandoned projects.

Besides causing a dilapidated environment, abandoned projects also cause unnecessary hardships to many people as they need to continue with their monthly bank instalments for their housing loans, and in many cases, unless the projects are successfully revived, there will be no end in sight as to how long they have to bear their ordeal. Some victims of abandoned housing projects have to suffer in silence for more than 22 years.

The National House Buyers Association (HBA) had previously urged the government to make good the implementation of the Build-Then-Sell (BTS) 10:90 system as the industry’s housing delivery model from 2015 as was recorded in the Parliament Hansard. HBA has previously urged the government not to deviate from the original roadmap to implement the BTS 10:90 system put in place under the Housing Development (Control and Licensing) Act and Regulations. The laws have been amended to adopt the BTS 10:90 model since 2012 with the introduction of Schedule I and Schedule J sales and purchase agreements. 

Under the BTS 10:90 system, house buyers only need to fork out the initial down payment of 10% when buying a house and do not need to make any further payment until the vacant possession of the property is delivered to them. As such, the servicing of the end-financing loans does not kick in until the houses are completed with all the certifications obtained and keys with vacant possession are presented to the buyers.

The government’s abandoned project revival efforts do not seem to be able to match or counterbalance the fresh problematic projects that have been labelled as sick or delayed that continue to recur to add to the statistics of abandonment.

The BTS 10:90 is a far safer mode of home delivery system and the government should without further delay, compel the housing industry to adopt the system as we believe it will drastically if not totally eliminate cases of housing projects being abandoned.

This is precisely why the government is encouraging it and offering incentives to developers who opt to adopt this mode of selling their products. But it fell short of compelling the industry to adopt this BTS 10:90 concept concurrently.

HBA now urges the current government to make BTS 10:90 mandatory for all new housing projects to safeguard the interest of the people and to eliminate the scourge of abandoned housing projects. 

Phase–In period 

The government could consider a gradual phase-in period, to avoid a big paradigm shift in the housing market, after taking into consideration of the time freeze and drawbacks during the Coronavirus-19 pandemic. HBA suggests: 

• By 2023 - BTS 10:90 mandatory for the affordable housing category
• By 2025 – mandatory 50% BTS 10:90 concept to be adopted for all housing developments
• By 2027 - all housing developments mandatorily adopt the BTS 10:90

Even though the Twelfth Malaysia Plan (2021 - 2025) has been launched with the slogan A Prosperous, Inclusive, Sustainable Malaysia and the papers reiterated the same aspirations and vision vis-à-vis the housing aspect, the question remains: Has there been a marked difference towards improvement?

We wait for the government to take the bull by the horns and lead the country forward vis-à-vis eradicating abandonment of housing projects and saving people’s life and hardship. Lest the government may have forgotten the NHP, the National House Buyers Association feels that many things are often forgotten and distracted. Hence, this is our best way to document them for posterity.

Datuk Chang Kim Loong is the honorary secretary-general of the National House Buyers Association: www.hba.org.my, a non-profit, non-governmental organisation manned by volunteers.

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