A minimum of one-fifth of the Penang South Reclamation (PSR) land will be used to increase the number of affordable housing units, said Jagdeep Singh Deo.

The state exco for housing, town and country planning, and local government exco said the proposal was tabled during a state executive council meeting and has been agreed on.

“The first island of PSR would take between 10 and 15 years to complete, and by that time as the Penang population increases, so will the demand for affordable housing,” he told a press conference today.

Jagdeep said the state government would require an adequate stock of low-cost units, low-medium cost units, as well as affordable housing units in the long run, as the number of housing applicants has been increasing each day.

“At the end of the day, we need to have enough housing units to ensure that every Penangite will have their own roof over their heads, especially first-time home buyers,” he said.

Under the PSR project, the state government is proposing to reclaim 1,821ha of the sea on three man-made islands south of the Penang International Airport, to create a land bank to fund the Penang Transport Master Plan (PTMP).

The PTMP project, estimated to cost RM46 billion, is an initiative of the state government encompassing an undersea tunnel connecting the island to the mainland, a highway, LRT, monorail and a bus network on the island and Seberang Perai.

Earlier, Jagdeep visited the construction site of Iconic Vue, a 26-storey apartment block consisting of 232 affordable housing units with a size of 78.97 sq m, located in a low-density neighbourhood of Batu Ferringhi. 

The project is expected to be completed by November this year, and to date, 228 units have been sold.

- Bernama