Better Houses for All

By LOONG MENG YEE and WANI MUTHIAH
The Star, Saturday April 22, 2006

SHAH ALAM: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi wants good quality and affordable homes set in comfortable neighbourhoods for the people. The houses must also be the result of responsible development, he said at the launch of the Housing and Local Government’s computerised “open registration system” for low-cost houses at the state secretariat building here.

LIGHT MOMENT: Abdullah, Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Seri Ong Ka Ting and Selangor Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Khir Toyo laughing at the antics of a low-cost housing applicant being interviewed through video conferencing in Shah Alam yesterday. — Bernamapic

Abdullah said houses of good quality could be built with the implementation of the Industrialised Building System (IBS) in which component parts like windows and doors would be mass-produced. The system could stabilise the price of building materials as mass production would help to reduce costs, he said. He said the IBS would ensure the quality of houses as all parts would come from factories. “This is crucial as contractors usually don’t follow specifications and people complain that the houses they get in the end are not as advertised,” he said.

Abdullah also wanted a comprehensive ICT database set up to help house buyers obtain necessary information like the location of housing projects and pricing, among other things.
“Some people (want to) buy homes in places far from where they are living, some near their kampungs to settle down in after retirement,” he said. “So, it is good to have a database on homes giving details like where they are to be built, pricing, and whether they are located near towns.”

Abdullah said housing developers must be responsible and look into various factors like environmental implications before launching projects. “One cannot foresee what can happen in housing areas. Places which had never been flooded before have become flood prone after houses are built there,” he noted. He said irresponsible developers often took the easy way out like cutting down trees and dumping soil into rivers for their housing projects, which in the end caused flooding.