KUALA Lumpur, the most densely populated city in the country and with the costliest homes, has been exempted from the blanket ban on new luxury development projects.

The city keeps its master plan under the Official Secrets Act, and is not subject to the ruling that came into effect on November 1.

Segambut MP Lim Lip Eng, after meeting KL Mayor Mhd Amin Nordin Abdul Aziz, quoted the latter as saying the ban would be discussed further with the Finance Ministry.

“I asked the mayor whether the blanket ban will be implemented in KL, and he said no.

“He said DBKL (KL City Hall) will not implement it yet, and instead, will make some suggestions to the Finance Ministry and discuss the matter.

“However, he did not say what the suggestions were,” Lim said in a press conference at DBKL today.

It was previously reported that Finance Minister II Johari Abdul Ghani said the Cabinet had decided to freeze approvals of luxury projects starting November 1.

This affects properties worth more than RM1 million.

The move was made after a Bank Negara Malaysia report on Malaysia’s high-end real estate glut was released, which pointed out that the number of affordable homes was much lower than market demand.

The central bank said the number of unsold residential properties, at 130,690 units, was the highest in a decade.

The figure was for the first quarter of the year, and of the total, about 83% of the units were priced above RM250,000.

Some 61% of the total unsold units were high-rise properties, of which 89% were priced above RM250,000.

KL has the third-largest share of unsold residential units in Malaysia, at 14%. Johor has the largest share at 27%, followed by Selangor with 21%.

Lim said the Kuala Lumpur Structure Plan 2020 had been scrapped, and DBKL would make an announcement on new plans soon.

He also said DBKL’s budget for next year had been approved at RM2.905 billion.

“They said they will take the current KL Structure Plan 2020 and fine-tune it with the DBKL Strategic Plan 2020, and will call it the Kuala Lumpur City Plan 2040 or 2050.”

He added that the mayor defended DBKL’s decision to not sell DBKL-owned land via open tender, saying doing so would be “nonsense” as people would bid only if they were sure that they could make a profit out of the purchase.

“The mayor said there is a plot of land next to Jalan Pinang that was sold via an open tender process to the highest bidder.

“He said the new owner of the land left it abandoned after having bought it at a high price, because the purchasing power in the market is not good.

“The mayor said if the land had not been sold via open tender, it could have been sold at a reasonable price, which would make house buyers and everyone happy.” – December 12, 2017.