No to more high-rises
MANY Penang Global City Centres (PGCC) may come up on Penang island following the raising of density for high-rise buildings, said a former Penang municipal councilor.
Teh Leong Meng, who is a Gerakan leader, said this would result in traffic congestion and transportation woes.
He said the Penang Municipal Council (MPPP) had in June 2010 raised the density to enable developers to build 87 units per 0.404ha or 120 units per 0.404ha if the project involves low-cost or low medium-cost units.
Previously, the density was 30 units per 0.404ha.
Teh said the former state administration did not approve the PGCC which was supposed to be built on Penang Turf Club grounds in Batu Gantong due to non- compliance with density requirements.
He said there was a proposal to build 40 blocks, each about 40-storey high at the site. There were also plans to build two five-star hotels.
“The project was scrapped due to strong opposition from the public. Traffic congestions will surely take place everywhere with the new guidelines,” he said during a forum on “Say No to 87 units Per Acre” at a hotel in Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah here on Wednesday evening.
Teh was one of the three speakers at the forum. The other two were Penang Citizens’ Awareness Chant Group representative Prof Dr Jimmy Lim who is an architect and Yan Lee, a resident of Pykett Avenue.
State Local Government and Traffic Management Committee chairman Chow Kon Yeow had said that the density guidelines were still being fine-tuned.
Lim questioned whether an increased in development density would bring any social or environmental benefits to the people.
He added that development should be well thought and planned to complement the cultural norms of the place, lifestyle, tradition, culture, environment, heritage, trees and hills.
“Architecture is all about people. But Penang is fast becoming a messed-up city, with high-rise buildings taking place everywhere,” he said.
Citing an example, he said development could take place in the mould of Shanghai in China.
He said all the old architecture built by Russians, French, Germans and others were left intact and well preserved in Shanghai.
“The Government did not demolish such buildings in the old Shanghai to make way for development. Instead, all the crowded-skyscrapers were built in Pudong new area of Shanghai.
“This shows that the leaders have a vision.
“Similarly, the old city of George Town and its surrounding heritage buildings or bungalows should also be left untouched.
“The state government can have all its tall buildings built in other areas such as Bayan Baru,” he said.
Source: The Star
Sadly there will be no one solution that can makes everyone happy. Ask 10 person and you get 9 different results on how Penang should handle future development.
I may have less say in this because I moved to Penang from outside, thus having different view than people who grew up here. But all I wish to say is clinging to the past isn’t the answer, nor is blindly develop for the future.
I’d want to see more low rise walk up “green” apartment, I’d like to see affordable high rise apartment with just a strong security and a park, rather than an expensive condo with all the pool/gym/tennis court/hall but never maintained.
I’d also like to see less car on the road, instead of more road to accommodate more cars. After some self reflection, I do realize we Malaysians tends to be a selfish bunch. We’d like things fixed for us, but are not willing to compromise or become part of the solution.
I’m too much of a coward to ride a bicycle in the traffic today, but I show my support by giving way to cyclist and/or make sure they are safe. Doesn’t seems like this stop the person behind me to toot the horn just because I spend 7 second more letting a bicycle through before I go out of the junction… sigh…
Hi Chris,
I agree with you. We need a WELL BALANCED and SUSTAINABLE development. With limited land on the island, it would be impractical not to built high rise. There’s nothing wrong with high rise, and it can be very enjoyable living if we build it right.
We need efficient and conducive public transport system. Looking forward to state government announcement this coming Jan since federal government choose to spend money elsewhere.
Most fundamentals facilities like schools, library, government offices, banks are in/around Georgetown or up North. The new generations (baby boomers?) don’t live in Georgetown any more. Something that work in the 70s, do not work now. Social-dynamics has changed. But we are still relying on the same settings as in the 70s. So, most of us end up fighting horrendous traffic just to get something done, like get a passport, visit MPPP, or just to get to our kids’ school. Imagine a round-trip like this take approximately 2 hrs to complete. One easy way out is to relocate existing schools, or build more schools (secondary, elementary, private, whatever). If schools are just a stone’s throw away, we don’t need to drive at all.
One thing we cannot avoid is the increment of population to a point where there is no more space to expand the job market. As someone who moved to penang for the engineering jobs here, I do know Penang is attracting a lot of outsiders, either investors or just job seekers.
I don’t know how a Penangnite who’s not in the engineering field feels about this, but it’s something that everyone have to compromise.
Penang is a beautiful island, a good balance of nature and civilization, modern yet filled with cultures from yesteryears, and a great pace of life that is neither too fast nor too slow. But as Ops said, the time has changed, and in order to maintain that balance, our mindset must change as well. We must think of the future, instead of clinging to the past.
As density increases, things that was once taken for granted will become a luxury. A garden, large houses, convenience of driving everywhere by car, my own car porch, a pet or three. I already gave up having my own car porch to fix my own car to move to Penang, I’ll probably give up driving a car in the future.
People complain about traffic if the density goes up, then we just have to fix the traffic problems. I just drive around the island over the weekend (sorry to put another car on the road), and I must say Penang, especially Georgetown, isn’t really design to have this many cars to begin with.
Why not alternative transport? On top of my head I can think of a mixture of bicycle and busses. Let’s use busses that people can bring their bicycle on it. I won’t mind riding for 5 minutes to the nearest hub, wait for 5 minutes for the next bus to come, hope on it and ride my bicycle for another 5 minutes to my final destination. Cars should be reserved for times when you need to bring a lot of people or carry a lot of stuff.
@Chris
The projected population will be the least to worry. There will not be much more jobs transfer from US. President Obama has clear policy to maintain the jobs in US. The population growth due to non-penangites looking for electronic industry career here will be stagnant.
Bernanke said the worst is behind US. Looking forward to growth again next year.
@heehee
Fair point.
@PG Guy
Correct me if I’m wrong, but unless they decide to build factories in Balik Pulau, there doesn’t seems like there’s any land left for factories/office in the FTZ anymore.
I have friends told me we’ll be seeing new factories in Bukit Minyak and Kulim. So heehee does have a point regardless of whether there’s growth or not in the electronic industry as far as Penang Island is concerned.
Think positive. Increase density can give more income to State
@Chris
2/3 of US economy contributed by consumer spending. If they grow, demand for FTZ goods will rise. Not sure about whether property price will grow faster next year.
@Chris
Penang Island electronic industrial should move on to the high end site, which require more engineers compare to thousands foreign labors. Like Singapore, high value manufacturing is at Singapore, low end one move to Malaysia like Melaka, Johor. Now Penang many electronic plants can survive because of cheap foreign workers. One day if the cost of foreign workers doesn’t cheap any more, then it is time to close shop.
It’s hard to predict the future. Ah well we’re getting off topic, this is a property website.
Speaking of property, call me crazy but I was hoping for more studio/home office units, preferably close to the FTZ. It may be impractical to raise a family in those sort of home, but I could always rent it out in the future.
Look at big cities like NY or London, these small/affordable units would be a hit. I have a good feeling that I would have no issue renting one out, because I myself wants to rent one now. Niche market is still a market, plus people need to accept that house size will go down as density climbs. I’d be happy if I have a 250sft studio now…
@Chris
Penang electronic industry is mainly depends on job transfer from US now, and also the supporting small-medium industry. It will be tough for the industry to grow while Obama make a firm policy to restrict job transfer out of US. There is none local company which is capable to create sufficient growth, and support the SME, and the local higher learning institution is incapable to support R&D as well. So the population growth of the middle class (engineers) will be stagnant. Those speculated on the oversupplied condo at Sg Ara may burn their hand soon.
@Chris
You may check out first phase of penang world city at bayan mutiara. I heard 400sft empty studio selling 300k. Soft launch next month.
Look like most of the comments above show no objection to build more highrise in Penang. Myself also have the same opinion. It is the state government’s duty to bring in more investors and jobs to this region. Economy in this region will continue to growth with more jobs opportunity create by the investor. All of us understand the theory, but we are only able to discuss here, is the state government receive our message? Now, the objector had call a seminar to deliver their message to state government and public. So what should we do?
@Marcus
Yes most comment show no objection about high density 87 units per acre. Any impact either positively or negatively received by them. So are the objector not managed to convince the people about this issue or bcoz politic reason?
Most of the people want a balanced development. The requirement on Traffic Impact Assessment (TIS) is a good start. Also the housing price psf will need to be adjusted accordingly to density. Previously 30units per 0.404 acre now increase to 87units per 0.404acre. Since the price of the land is the major housing cost, the housing price should lower down accordingly (~40%-50% lower?) If not this will just just let the developers walk away with more profit only while worsen the traffic/living standard. Agreed?
First we should know why State increase density from 30units/acre to 87units/acre? if based from number 30 to 87 per acre show developers have an advantage coz they can build more. But what the advantage for State? State also have advantage when developers use 87unit/acre, State will charges them for density premium up to RM15 per square feet. Simple story if developers build more units, State will get more money. Impact from 87unit/acre is house price increase and traffic congestion. To solve the house price increase and traffic congestion developers need to comply Traffic Impact Assessment (TIA) and build some units (i think 20% to 30% from total units) with prices RM200,000 to RM500,000….Agreed?
@Lady Gogo
Personally I’d like to see at least 50% of the houses priced between 200k – 500k. There seems to be more luxurious homes in Penang than the people actually need.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s fine to encourage investment, but not at the expense of sacrificing the people’s needs. There are people who just want to own a house for own stay, the state government can’t just neglect them.
The “gap” I noticed is that there’s a lack of houses affordable to young professionals who earn above the requirement for a low-medium cost apartment, but the next most affordable apartment is beyond reach. Some may be able to scrap by every month paying for a 450k apartment, but they are left with nothing left. How about more 250k apartments so they (or we) have more money to raise a family? Or just spend that money on local businesses so they can strive as well? We won’t want all our money to get locked inside the property business right? That doesn’t sound very healthy for the state…
Hmm I’m not sure if I’m allowed to post a link here or not, but it’s from the BBC. It’s about high rise development in Singapore, I think it is of interest to people visiting penangpropertytalk:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-20526219
Anyone who think high rise is not the way to go should watch that, it’s not a bad idea.
Hi Ang Mo,
You have rightly pointed out that the increase of regulatory plot ratio has not yielded the desired consequences. I am not a bit surprised as our country has a very “good” track record of halfhearted policy, halfhearted enforcement and therefore halfhearted results. I believe the current penang administration is talking about imposing price control to certain percentage of units in a project. Let’s wait and see how the developers manipulate and circumvent this control…:)…Has the state gov set up a panel for complaints? Any serious punishment for developers/agents caught profiteering in cahoots? Who are the enforcement officers?
Hi Chris,
Your statement is interesting indeed and should open up very interesting social debates…”There seems to be more luxurious homes in Penang than the people actually need”. People? As in the locals? Or just any human being? There’s a hell lot of difference! Any average-income foreigner from a developed nation can afford a luxurious home in Penang by virtue of their “average” income is usually 4 to 5 times of our “average”…:) Letting foreigners own our properties in a way encourages speculative buys by the locals, and therefore leaving less for the genuine owner occupiers…:)
Some smart people must do a thesis on this phenomena, debate the issues in public, get everyone be aware and involved in the matter, only then people will realize what is happening, and decide consciously and collectively where we (penangites) want to move from here. And as we speak, I was just told that a friend just sold his newly refurbished boutique hotel in Noordin street to a S’porean…..:)…There goes another piece of our heritage into the hands of a foreigner….:)
I do believe that foreign participation in our Penang properties are actually quite minimal compared to the over all purchases done by the locals. If you look at the statistics how many percent of foreigners actually apply through our MM2H program?
Back to question of affordability, there are many areas that are still affordable but the problem with most Penangites is what i call the “green eye” disease. You see someone staying in a better location and in a bigger house and you start to come up with a bunch of reasons as to why i am not the one living in that kind of lifestyle.
If i am not wrong, housing itself was really cheap but no one wanted to pay attention to it. I bought my bungalow in hillside tg bungah back in the 1980’s for RM185,000 (11,000sft land area). Knock it down and rebuild it for RM1 million back in 1998. Today it is worth RM8.5 million.
Why didn’t anyone buy when it was at RM185K or RM500K or RM1 million? It is a clear trend that it was trending upwards.
Back to my point, there are affordable houses across the birdge, Balik Pulau, Ayer Itam, sungai ara ,bayan lepas etc.
The problem with Penangites like you “Condomana” is that you want the best of everything (location plus luxury) but you refuse to pay for it. So, you wait and than you realize that the price is not coming down. So, instead of buying the Brezza for RM330K-400K, you would rather pay RM500K-600K upon completion after posting a whole bunch of reasons as to why the prices for the Brezza would drop. You troll a few other properties back in 2009 by predicting that properties would drop and you would buy than.
At the end of the day, discontented you decides to whine over it on a property website claiming this and that which i find a bit annoying because you are so anti-foreign ownership and you refuse to accept the logic behind inflation and money printing.
What’s wrong with foreign ownership? Heritage houses back than was in so bad condition. If it weren’t for the foreigners do you think those heritage houses will look amazing today? They did a great job in restoring our pride. Besides, it is a heritage property. It is not something that you can knockdown and take away with them back to wherever they came from. It is still in Penang and as long as the heritage property is in Penang it is our pride.
I still don’t follow your logic of protectionism when the previous Penangites owners are not capable in protecting their own heritage building.
Stop being so communist will ya.
@condomana
@Veera
No need to divert the attention to foreigner buyers. It is totally not related foreigner buyers, but it is the effectiveness of the implementation of the policy and whether some unethical developers will find loop holes to make more profit instead of lower down the housing price.
The policy of increasing housing density per plot of land is to provide medium cost apartment (not landed and not luxury/low density!) to the average income group, by lower down the cost of the land per unit (can build more unit per same land size). The price of apartment build under this policy should be lower. If not, something is wrong and some one has make more profit somewhere, and this is the loop hole the government need to fix. If not, the policy does not beneficial to average penangites at all while lower down the living standard (more congested). The government agency need to monitor the housing price/effectiveness and make sure it is not been manipulated to make more money for the already-rich group!
@Ang Mo
Agreed. Foreign ownership should be negligible, it’s only a small percentage of the ownership and there’s a minimum 1 million pricetag for foreign ownership right?
@condomana
Hi. When I say people, I mean people, inclusive of everyone, Penangnites, Malaysians, Foreigners.
I agree that there’s a huge difference between local and foreign buyers, but what is the actual number? I don’t have the numbers, and I won’t pull them out of thin air. For the sake of the discussion, let’s say there’s 100 buyers. 5 foreigners, 25 well-off middle age locals looking for 2nd home or a more luxurious place, 50 average middle class income earners, and 20 lower income earners.
I see there are enough high end condos to satisfy foreign buyers and higher income group. I also see plenty of low-medium cost apartments, although I heard from colleagues and friends that they are snatched up pretty fast, and according to their personal stories, it doesn’t seems like the guideline is very clear (husband and wife manage to get 1 unit each? what?)
So now, from my humble point of view, the average college/university graduated middle income group neither are they qualify for the low-medium cost apartment, nor afford a 500k unit. It’s that gap I’m talking about, I don’t think spending all the money you have to pay for mortgage and eat white bread everyday is a good quality life.
This group of people will be forced to rent. While it’s good for the group who purchase a unit for renting out as an investment, it’s very unfair for those who wants to own a home. I believe in renting as a choice, not forced to rent.
@Veera
I’m not exactly foreign, but considering I’m from a different state I’m not sure what the locals would consider of me, maybe just an outsider?
There’s a saying ‘Communist until you get rich’, I just read it off the Internet. However I do not believe in either extremes, I’m neither left nor right. I think being Communist or extreme socialism would slow down the economy, while being too capitalistic encourages abuse of capital (at least I think so).
There has to be a balance. For me the first step is to end speculation. Yes, probably very unpopular thing for speculators visiting this site and I’ll probably be shot, but it has to stop or controlled. I personally know someone with 5 units of condominium, his argument is that he can afford the mortgage as long as he can rent them out. While he’s not wrong doing that, 4 potential owners just lost the chance owning a house because he horded it.
I’m not sure what is “green eye” disease, maybe I’m not a penangnite. I’m renting now but still looking for chances to have my own home here. I think logically the best choice for me would be looking at older units that goes for under 300k, I’m only willing to spend 400-450rm/sf for an okay-ish location, though I still wish there’s a new unit at this price.
@Chris
Rental return is only good for low-medium cost apartment (RM500 for <RM150K LMC). Very bad rental return for a RM350k condo (hardly get RM1000 month rental) – yearly return is only 3.4% almost same to fix deposit. Worse if you borrow loan at BLR-2.XX= 4.XX % interest. A person with logical thinking will not likely buy Pg properties for renting.
Yes, buy subsale at good/OK location. You may even still can get subsale with RM3xx psf. Don't blindly follow the developers pricing. They just simply jacking up the price without justification and the property market already lost momentum.
you are wrong, you have to consider even same as FD, the price of the apt go up
What about property maintenance cost? And what about, touch wood, property market collapse? One can’t take something for granted as far as investment is concerned.
That said, seems like I need to keep an eye on the pr1ma thing. I’m eligible at least. I’m no speculator, I just want a home
I’m wondering, just wondering, what if……..what if BN wins Penang state this coming election, how would life be different for Penagites in the next few years……….???….HHmmmm…
Penang will continue to prosper regardless under any administration…. Penang people are plucky and tough….. no probs…. we will survive… always
If that happened, Penang “should” get new LMC build at that piece of land at Taman Manggis instead of private hospital.
I don’t have any say in Penang’s politic, I’d be going home to vote. Not a big fan of politic but as usual, will vote for the lesser evil.
Regardless, life goes on no matter who the government is, although I’d prefer one that looks forward instead of clinging to the past. As shown in the US’ presidential election analysis (if anyone is following), the number of votes that a conservative party can get will get lesser by the year. I expect Malaysia to be the same, we’re more and more educated by the year as well.
“Need more houses? No problem, let’s go higher density”
“Too packed? No problem, let’s use some clever condominium designs to increase green spaces”
“Traffic jam? No problem, let’s try some efficient public transport”
I’d like to see things like this. We need to move forward. Not “oh no! we can’t build more! It’s too packed! Let’s just not do anything and keep everything as is..”
@chris
You are right. The right move is to move forward. No point looking back on the what ifs. Perhaps to solve the traffic issue, we should first improve the public transport. I don’t see why people are making a fuss over some trees that will be replanted somewhere else along Jalan Masjid Negeri if that can help to improve the traffic flow. As long they replant the amount of trees they remove i am fine with it.
Those who still dwells and hopes for a better future from BN, let me tell you this today that it is not going to happen for the mere reasons that they serve only their own agenda. Instead of working together with DAP to improve Penang. They are constantly picking fights over small issues like little kids. BN’s power clinging days are over, it is just the matter of time before we slowly oust them from their thrones. Enough is enough.
@Veera
Agreed. Although BN did said something that makes sense from time to time, but as you know talk is cheap.
The BN – Taman Manggis fiasco is a total joke for me. I don’t claim to know too much about land deals and/or the proper way to do it. The claim the land cost 22m, it’s 1.1acre, so you can build only 95 unit on top of that piece of land? Is this correct? Each unit would already cost 231k without building anything…. how on earth does that work?
I’m not a penangnite, but I hope the state and federal government will do their best for this state, because I love this place. I’ve been to every state’s major cities except Sabah, and I think this is the best place to be in Malaysia. Hopefully it will get even better.