Goh (left) presenting a memento to Soudi.
PENAMPANG: Several issues were discussed in a meeting between Sabah Housing and Real Estate Developers Association (SHAREDA), the District Council and components of its technical committee yesterday.
SHAREDA president Francis Goh led a delegation of its members who also included Malaysia Architect Association (PAM) and Association of Consulting Engineers Malaysia (ACEM) for the meeting which was chaired by District Council executive officer Soudi Samy.
Also present were representatives from the state Drainage and Irrigation Department, district Health Department office, Public Works Department and the Fire and Rescue Services Department.
Goh, when met after the meeting, said SHAREDA was grateful to the District Council for understanding the industry players’ problems, especially on the delay on the approval of development plans submitted.
“Today the meeting was very fruitful. The District Council’s executive officer has accepted some of our recommendations and we believe it can shorten the approval of our development plans by at least six months.
“This will allow developers to concurrently go through the process while waiting for compliance of other conditions and the technical comments by other relevant quarters prior to the approval of the building plans.
“At least we know that we do not have to sit and wait for the development plan to be approved before taking the next step. So now we can have the development plan approved first then we can move forward on the process like going to the Land and Survey Department and calculation of land premium to Hasil Bumi,” he said.
According to him, developers usually had to wait at least six months after the approval of the development plan for the building plan to be approved as there were other issues to be settled.
He also said SHAREDA and players of the construction industry understood that the District Council was short of professional manpower which was why there were delays in the approval process.
“We understand the problem with workforce. They don’t even have an architect in the council but we have discussed this and PAM as well as ACEM, and they are willing to send their members to help out maybe once a week in the aspect of technical comments,” Goh said.
Another issue raised by SHAREDA was the proposal that developers were given the approval by the Central Board first for any proposed project instead of the approval being the last step of the process.
“It is important that we try to highlight this problem. SHAREDA is in the midst of getting its members’ opinions on the matter. The District Council also fully supports our proposal to urge that the Central Board approval to be put ahead.
“This is to reduce market risk and what we call the development order risk faced by developers. As you know, when we buy land we have to go through the conditional sales and purchase agreement by paying 10 per cent first. The balance is then paid up within a grace period of about six months,” he said.
Goh said if developers received the Central Board’s approval first and then found out later that the land could not be developed, they would not mind forfeiting the 10 per cent deposit for the land.
“Imagine if we had paid the full amount for the land only to find out six months down the line that we cannot develop it, it will put us in a difficult situation,” he said.
Meanwhile, Soudi said the District Council welcomed the offer of assistance from PAM and ACEM.
“We will discuss this matter in a full council meeting after the councillors are appointed as it needs their approval,” he said and expressed hope to have more meetings so that they can exchange experience, opinions, ideas and suggestions for the betterment of Penampang.