Original building plans show LGE may not have told the truth over Taman Manggis PPRT

LSSR

These are the original building plans for Taman Manggis phase 1 + phase 2.

As you can see from the plans, the space between phase 1 and phase 2 would have been reduced to allow more building space.

The entire 4.92 acres phase 1 and phase 2 was approved for PPRT via a July 2003 Penang government memo.

Phase 1 has 318 units and phase 2 would have 272 units – a total of 590 units.

This would mean a development density of 120 units per acres – well within the 156 units per acre approval given for the City of Dreams and other projects that the Penang Govt had approved.

In any case, development density is meaningless in Penang since they never approved the Penang Local Plan since 2008.

According to LGE, this delay was due to the need to translate sections of the local plan to Bahasa which somehow takes years and years to do.

This also shows that LGE was not telling the full truth (he doesn’t like the word “bohong”) when he said the 1.1 acres of phase 2 was not big enough to fulfill the guidelines for PPRT houses set by the Housing Ministry.

Must use phase 1 and phase 2 together lah, which is 4.92 acres. How can you just simply use phase 2 of 1.1 acres when it is one design and one project?

Also, the SP Chelliah project that LGE said was a replacement for this PPRT is not exactly true since it is more of a privatized affordable homes project rather than a PPRT project which is for the the lowest income groups and typically is for rental at about RM100 per month.

(By the way,  the SP Chelliah project was awarded to a company which has only RM700,000 paid up capital owned by a neighbour in the street behind Jalan Pinhorn; but this is another story).

Whereas the SP Chelliah project is RM72,500 + RM25,000 parking spot for the cheapest units and goes up to RM400,000 for a 1,000 sf unit – which is RM400 psf – more expensive than LGE’s bungalow land price of RM275 psf.

In any case, why do you need a replacement project when you can build both?  Especially since Taman Manggis was already designed and approved.

Is it because Penang has too many affordable or low cost housing already?

Whatever the case is, 272 poorest families may have lost a chance for public housing.