Tong said this would help to reduce developers’ holding costs and enable them to pass on savings to property buyers.
KUALA LUMPUR: The Real Estate and Housing Developers’ Association (Rehda) Malaysia has welcomed Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s plan to reduce the time needed by local authorities to grant development approvals.
Its president Datuk N.K. Tong said this would help to reduce developers’ holding costs and enable them to pass on savings to property buyers.
“Developers can then plan ahead how much a project will cost once there is a key performance indicator that local authorities need to benchmark against,” he told Bernama.
However, there will be challenges because land is a state matter and every local authority has its own time schedule when it comes to granting of approvals.
Therefore, it is important to get all states to be aligned with the federal government’s policy, he said.
“We want to have proper approvals ... no shortcuts, just expedite it. We believe something can be done just like how we expedite our passport application process without compromising on the security features.
“Not only do we want approval time to be reduced, we also want the government to be consistent on this matter,” said Tong.
