MIDDLE-CLASS folk who cannot afford houses on the free market will be a priority in the Kuala Lumpur 2040 Master Plan, said Federal Territories Minister Khalid Abdul Samad.

“Previously, the issue of homes for the middle class was not fully addressed. You find young professionals earning about RM6,000 a month who cannot afford to buy a house.

“They don’t qualify for low-cost housing and they wouldn’t want to live there either. But they also can’t afford open-market houses because those cost at least RM500,000 and can exceed RM1 million,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

The drafting process for the KL 2040 plan is expected to begin next year, he said.

City plans are usually designed to cover development over a 20-year time frame.

Initiatives, such as the Federal Territories Affordable Housing Project, or Rumawip, are being improved so that more people in this income bracket can afford to buy homes priced about RM300,000, said Khalid.

The ministry is also considering purchasing People’s Housing Project (PPR) units, to be rented out to those who cannot afford to buy low-cost homes.

“Currently, PPR and public housing units are rented out for RM124 a month. But there are cases where people are not even able to pay the RM124,” said Khalid.

“So, we are also trying to find community work (for the poor), so that they can earn money to pay their rent,” he said, adding that these issues are being studied and many ideas have been proposed.

Asked if the KL 2040 plan will address the rising cost of living, which is disproportionate to wage increase, he said this is a task for the government as a whole, not just his ministry.

“The poor can get out of poverty, depending on the country’s economic situation. That’s not fully dependent on me.”

The minister recently came under fire for gazetting the Kuala Lumpur City Plan 2020 (KLCP 2020) without public consultations.

The draft of the plan was first launched in 2008. It underwent numerous changes but was never gazetted by the previous government.

Asked about the seemingly hasty move to gazette KLCP 2020, Khalid said the plan had been ready to be gazetted in 2015, but his predecessor, Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, refused to do so at the last minute.

Several Kuala Lumpur land transactions that took place under the previous administration are now the subject of anti-corruption investigations.

Khalid previously said violations contained in KLCP 2020 will be addressed in the 2040 plan. – December 10, 2018.