BY MARTIN CARVALHO, HEMANANTHANI SIVANANDAM, LOSHANA K SHAGAR, KANYAKUMARI DAMODARAN
TAN Sri Noh Omar accused the Selangor government of manipulating property prices in the state and making them too expensive.
The Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Minister, who is Selangor Umno chief, claimed the state government, through the local councils, were “forcing” developers to fork out more funds for housing projects.
“The prices of properties are decided by the state government. It is understandable that if the piece of property is in a prime spot, it will cost a lot more and I agree that there are many other factors that contribute to the prices.
“For Selangor, the state government will impose development charges and infrastructure charges. This, in turn would result in the developers being forced to fork out more money and that would impact the prices.
“In the end, although they have this affordable home schemes, people can only afford to look at those homes, not own them,” he told reporters at the Parliament lobby.
Noh said his ministry would meet officials from all states next month to seek to standardise the development of housing schemes.
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In response, Selangor Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Azmin Ali told Noh to learn mathematics.
“All housing projects in the state are affordable and developers are not forced to pay extra to obtain property deals.
“Selangor houses were built on government-owned land and developers were made to build affordable homes before pushing for expensive projects,” he said when met later.
Azmin said that the land value in the state was still reasonable.
“In the Klang Valley, privately-owned land is more expensive. But on those areas that are owned by the Selangor government, we push for the developers to build Rumah SelangorKu houses that are affordable before they can build more expensive homes,” he added.
