To overcome land constraint in Perlis, the state government encouraged developers to build more apartments and condominiums to meet demand.

“The demand for low and medium cost houses has increased over the years, but hampered due to land constraint,” said Perlis New Town Development, Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Committee chairman Sabry Ahmad.

“As such, the state government is promoting the construction of condominiums and apartments to overcome the problem.”

He said this after yesterday’s signing of joint-venture agreement between Encomas Sdn Bhd (Encomas) and Koperasi Guru-guru Melayu Perlis Berhad (KGMPs) for the development of a housing project within the state.

Encomas managing director, Datuk Rick Cheng Wooi Seong signed on behalf of the developer, while KGMPs was represented by its chairman Kamarudin Che Kassim, treasurer, Ashikin Talib and secretary, Dahlan Ismail.

The agreement will see Encomas spending RM19 million for the project, which will be carried out on a 3.3ha site owned by KGMPs.

While the concept of living in apartment and condominium is new for Perlis residents, the people were starting to accept it, said Sabry.

He click here also revealed that the state government has offered a site in Arau to develop 500 homes under the 1Malaysia People’s Housing Project (PR1MA) while a high-rise project in Kuala Perlis will be built in stages.

Sabry also noted in his speech that over 50 percent of land in Perlis had been zoned food producing area and could not be used for other purposes.

With this, efforts are being made in order to identify land owned by cooperatives for development projects.

Notably, there are 168 cooperatives in the state, with 76,000 members and assets exceeding RM111.8 million as well as RM66.5 million in share capital, added Sabry.

Original article from Property Guru (published on April 1, 2014) and Borne Post online.