GEORGE TOWN: The Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Ministry is looking to hold a technical visitto two lots of land in Jelutong to assess the suitability of the sites to develop People’s Housing Project (PPR) units.
State Housing, Town and Country Planning Committee chairman Jagdeep Singh Deo (pic) said the state had identified the two plots of land totalling 4ha that it owned.
“We have met up with minister Tan Sri Noh Omar early this year and discussed various aspects of the issue.
“He said PPR was under the Federal Government. So, they will build the units but it will be maintained by the state.
“He said if we could identify land, they will consider the state government’s request to develop PPR,” he told a press conference in Komtar yesterday.
Jagdeep, who welcomed the visit, said Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng received a letter from Noh dated Aug 8 saying that the ministry took note of the application by the state government to develop the PPR project on the two lots of land since there was an issue over the lack of PPR units in the state.
The letter also stated that for the ministry and Federal Government to consider the application, a technical visit to the sites needed to be arranged to assess the sites’ suitability.
If the sites are found to be suitable, the ministry would then apply for the land to be transferred to the Federal Land Commissioner, the letter read.
“After the plots of land have been alienated to the Federal Government, the ministry will then proceed to apply for allocation from the Economic Planning Unit of the Prime Minister’s Department to develop the PPR project on the site,” the letter read.
Jagdeep said the state government had earlier applied to the Federal Government to build the PPR units on two 4ha plots of state government-owned land as well as on a 14ha plot of Federal Government land.
He said while the state government received a positive reply from the ministry, the letter did not mention about the state’s application to build PPRunits on the 14ha federal-owned land.
“Penang has the lowest number of PPR units with 698 units to date, and with some 2,000 families on the waiting list for PPR units.
“The problem can be solved if the Federal Government gives its approval,” he added.
