GEORGE TOWN: The Real Estate and Housing Developers’ Association (Rehda) Penang has been urged to play a bigger role in helping local developers obtain the advertising permit and developer licence (APDL) for their projects.

It was reported in The Star that 47 out of 81 applications for the licence for state government and private projects submitted from August 2014 had yet to be approved.

State Housing, Town and Country Planning Committee chairman Jagdeep Singh Deo said Rehda should pursue the matter with the Federal Government and if necessary, file a law suit.

“Treat it as a test case and if you win, I’m sure the Federal Govern-ment will issue the APDLs because it does not want to be burdened with lawsuits and legal costs.

“The state can only make its views known,” he told a press conference in Jalan Kuantan yesterday.

Rehda (Penang) chairman Datuk Jerry Chan when contacted said they could not sue at the branch level and he did not agree to such a drastic step.

“Anyway, the matter has been brought up to Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan by our national president and myself in November.

“He has agreed to approve some of the applications which we brought up to him,” he said,

Chan added that the Federal Government was not happy with the state over some of its projects that were not approved.

“It is up to the state and Federal Government to resolve the matter and it is unfair that the private sector has been penalised for this.”

On a related matter, Jagdeep announced that most of the APDL for the state government’s affordable housing project in Jalan SP Chelliah had been approved.

“We’ve obtained the APDLs for the RM200,000 and RM300,000 affordable housing and RM72,500 low medium-cost projects. We’re just waiting for the APDL for the RM400,000 affordable housing.”

He suggested that the property developers’ association, and not just Rehda, come up with a property fair for affordable housing.

“I’m going to organise an affordable housing property fair for the first time soon because out of nearly 70,000 residential property transactions from 2012 till last year, 80% were in the affordable housing range,” he said.