As reported in Singapore Straits Times.
"Now
change is coming to Teluk Air Tawar.
Under pressure from the Penang state government, Blue Wagon restarted the project in 2011, with a private financier.
By next June, some 230 villagers will be able to move into their new flats.
"We basically said if you don't finish this project, you can forget about starting your other projects," said Wong Hon Wai, a former Penang executive councillor for housing, the Democratic Action Party's Air Itam assemblyman.
The Teluk Air Tawar families live inside six-metre-long containers, with leaky zinc roofing and some DIY extension done to lengthen the cooking area."
Under pressure from the Penang state government, Blue Wagon restarted the project in 2011, with a private financier.
By next June, some 230 villagers will be able to move into their new flats.
"We basically said if you don't finish this project, you can forget about starting your other projects," said Wong Hon Wai, a former Penang executive councillor for housing, the Democratic Action Party's Air Itam assemblyman.
The Teluk Air Tawar families live inside six-metre-long containers, with leaky zinc roofing and some DIY extension done to lengthen the cooking area."
http://www.asianewsnet.net/Msian-families-live-in-containers-for-17-years-53023.html
M'sian families live in containers for 17
years
Publication Date : 21-10-2013
Ng Get Hee's home is just a few steps to the beach, where he
likes to go fishing with his son Jackson.
Often, they stop to say hi to their neighbours. Theirs is a close-knit community; their homes in Teluk Air Tawar - Freshwater Bay in Malay - are shaded by casuarina trees and cooled by the sea breeze from the Strait of Malacca.
But this is no luxury seafront neighbourhood.
Ng's is one of 37 families who live in cramped six-metre- long shipping containers.
The containers were supposed to house them while their low- cost flats were being built, but the developer ran out of money in the 1997-1998 economic crisis.
Seventeen years later, they are still there.
"It's too cramped but how to move? (We have) no money," Ng, 54, told The Straits Times, with an air of resignation.
Teluk Air Tawar, Penang, may be an extreme case, but abandoned or delayed projects are common in Malaysia.
One in 10 housing developments are abandoned because developers, who sell their units before building them, either do not make enough sales, or take the deposit and use the cash for other failing projects.
Now the government is trying to finish many of these projects, either by bringing in a "white knight" developer, or other means of private financing.
On October 8, housing minister Abdul Rahman Dahlan told the Malaysian Parliament that 132 of 187 abandoned housing projects around Malaysia have been revived or completed as of August 31, while 44 projects are in negotiations.
Still, Chang Kim Loong, secretary-general of the National House Buyers Association, says many more projects are on the verge of being abandoned, and called for tougher penalties for wayward developers.
The Teluk Air Tawar families have lived here on the mainland side of Penang since pre-Independence days. Most are second- generation Teochew Chinese.
In 1997, a developer - Blue Wagon - bought the land from the government to build condominiums and terraced houses as well as cheap flats.
In exchange for giving up his family's two wooden homes, Ng signed an agreement for three 600-sq-ft flats worth 25,000 ringgit (US$7,915).
The developer brought in four rows of containers as "transit houses" for three years while the flats were being raised.
But the regional financial crisis hit and Blue Wagon ran out of money. Teluk Air Tawar has languished since.
Ng said they were too poor to sue the developer. Over time, he said, they just became used to living in the containers.
Permas, a non-governmental organisation which helps people move out of transit houses, estimates that 8,000 Malaysians displaced by development live in similar shacks, while waiting for the low-cost housing that is promised to them.
Some 90 per cent of these displaced folk are in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur, where most of Malaysia's rapid development in the 1980s and 1990s occurred. Often, they wait years for their replacement houses.
"But I have never heard of people, families living inside shipping containers for so long!" said Tan Jo Hann, head of Permas.
Now change is coming to Teluk Air Tawar.
Under pressure from the Penang state government, Blue Wagon restarted the project in 2011, with a private financier.
By next June, some 230 villagers will be able to move into their new flats.
"We basically said if you don't finish this project, you can forget about starting your other projects," said Wong Hon Wai, a former Penang executive councillor for housing, the Democratic Action Party's Air Itam assemblyman.
The Teluk Air Tawar families live inside six-metre-long containers, with leaky zinc roofing and some DIY extension done to lengthen the cooking area.
Ng, a part-time contractor, shares a room the size of a sedan with his wife and school-going daughter. His mother lives in a similar-sized room while his two older boys, both factory workers, live in a third room.
A rough concrete partition shields the common bath area. The family eat and watch Chinese dramas in a space the size of a van. On the walls are photos of the children, and sports medals.
At night, the tin shed becomes a oven without air-conditioning. When it rains, some containers flood to the ankles.
But now that they may soon move, the container dwellers have mixed feelings.
For one thing, they will have to start paying 150 ringgit ($47.36) a month for utilities and local assessments. Right now, the town council looks the other way.
Housewife Koh Siew Cheng, 54, tends a small garden at the back of her container to plant sugar cane, tapioca and some vegetables for her own use or to barter with her neighbours.
"I'm not sure if I'd be happy in a high-rise building," she said with a small glance in the flats' direction.
"Then, I won't have my garden anymore."
Often, they stop to say hi to their neighbours. Theirs is a close-knit community; their homes in Teluk Air Tawar - Freshwater Bay in Malay - are shaded by casuarina trees and cooled by the sea breeze from the Strait of Malacca.
But this is no luxury seafront neighbourhood.
Ng's is one of 37 families who live in cramped six-metre- long shipping containers.
The containers were supposed to house them while their low- cost flats were being built, but the developer ran out of money in the 1997-1998 economic crisis.
Seventeen years later, they are still there.
"It's too cramped but how to move? (We have) no money," Ng, 54, told The Straits Times, with an air of resignation.
Teluk Air Tawar, Penang, may be an extreme case, but abandoned or delayed projects are common in Malaysia.
One in 10 housing developments are abandoned because developers, who sell their units before building them, either do not make enough sales, or take the deposit and use the cash for other failing projects.
Now the government is trying to finish many of these projects, either by bringing in a "white knight" developer, or other means of private financing.
On October 8, housing minister Abdul Rahman Dahlan told the Malaysian Parliament that 132 of 187 abandoned housing projects around Malaysia have been revived or completed as of August 31, while 44 projects are in negotiations.
Still, Chang Kim Loong, secretary-general of the National House Buyers Association, says many more projects are on the verge of being abandoned, and called for tougher penalties for wayward developers.
The Teluk Air Tawar families have lived here on the mainland side of Penang since pre-Independence days. Most are second- generation Teochew Chinese.
In 1997, a developer - Blue Wagon - bought the land from the government to build condominiums and terraced houses as well as cheap flats.
In exchange for giving up his family's two wooden homes, Ng signed an agreement for three 600-sq-ft flats worth 25,000 ringgit (US$7,915).
The developer brought in four rows of containers as "transit houses" for three years while the flats were being raised.
But the regional financial crisis hit and Blue Wagon ran out of money. Teluk Air Tawar has languished since.
Ng said they were too poor to sue the developer. Over time, he said, they just became used to living in the containers.
Permas, a non-governmental organisation which helps people move out of transit houses, estimates that 8,000 Malaysians displaced by development live in similar shacks, while waiting for the low-cost housing that is promised to them.
Some 90 per cent of these displaced folk are in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur, where most of Malaysia's rapid development in the 1980s and 1990s occurred. Often, they wait years for their replacement houses.
"But I have never heard of people, families living inside shipping containers for so long!" said Tan Jo Hann, head of Permas.
Now change is coming to Teluk Air Tawar.
Under pressure from the Penang state government, Blue Wagon restarted the project in 2011, with a private financier.
By next June, some 230 villagers will be able to move into their new flats.
"We basically said if you don't finish this project, you can forget about starting your other projects," said Wong Hon Wai, a former Penang executive councillor for housing, the Democratic Action Party's Air Itam assemblyman.
The Teluk Air Tawar families live inside six-metre-long containers, with leaky zinc roofing and some DIY extension done to lengthen the cooking area.
Ng, a part-time contractor, shares a room the size of a sedan with his wife and school-going daughter. His mother lives in a similar-sized room while his two older boys, both factory workers, live in a third room.
A rough concrete partition shields the common bath area. The family eat and watch Chinese dramas in a space the size of a van. On the walls are photos of the children, and sports medals.
At night, the tin shed becomes a oven without air-conditioning. When it rains, some containers flood to the ankles.
But now that they may soon move, the container dwellers have mixed feelings.
For one thing, they will have to start paying 150 ringgit ($47.36) a month for utilities and local assessments. Right now, the town council looks the other way.
Housewife Koh Siew Cheng, 54, tends a small garden at the back of her container to plant sugar cane, tapioca and some vegetables for her own use or to barter with her neighbours.
"I'm not sure if I'd be happy in a high-rise building," she said with a small glance in the flats' direction.
"Then, I won't have my garden anymore."
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