This article first appeared in City & Country, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on July 17, 2023 - July 23, 2023

Residents of Teega @ Puteri Harbour are afforded a panoramic view of the Straits of Johor and Singapore from the Sky Lounge on Level 27. In fact, Teega is only 22km from the Malaysia-Singapore Second Link.

Developed by UEM Sunrise Bhd and completed in 2017, Teega is a mixed development with three 35-storey towers sitting atop a five-storey car park podium. Delivery of vacant possession took place in 2018.

The 10.08-acre development comprises three components: residential (Teega Residence with 736 condominium units and Teega Suites with 556 serviced apartments), office (Teega Tower with 51 office units) and commercial (Teega Walk with 28 commercial units).

Teega’s residential component comprises 70% local and 30% foreign residents. The units are mostly owner occupied. Both Teega Residence and Teega Suites boast a large number of facilities in their compounds.

At Teega Tower, tenants — which are in various industries such as oil and gas, logistics and engineering — include Dialog Plant Services Sdn Bhd, AWH International Logistics Sdn Bhd, GSD IDC Services (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd and Aero Malaysian Engineering Centre (AMEC).

Teega Walk is home to F&B offerings and convenience stores such as Tribus Restaurant, YSL Freshmart, Les Bouchons Restaurant and MyNews.

Teega won the bronze award in the Below 10 Years — Mixed Development (Entire) category at The Edge Malaysia Best Managed and Sustainable Property Awards 2023.

Teega joint management body (JMB) chairman Jeff Saw and secretary Sukhjeet Singh Sekhon, as well as property management company SCM International Property Management Sdn Bhd group chairman Raymond Cheah and building manager David Lim, spoke to City & Country in an online interview. The JMB’s goal is to ensure Teega residents’ needs and well-being are taken care of while property manager SCM ensures that the property runs smoothly.

Trust is an important element in the working relationship between the JMB and property manager, they say. “We treat this partnership like a corporation. We [the JMB] set the guidance, targets and objectives for [Lim and his team]. We give directions and leave Lim and his team to execute them,” says Saw.

They also hold meetings to discuss the property’s finances, as well as the maintenance, enhancements and upgrades. A WhatsApp group is one of the main communication channels between the two parties. There is a separate WhatsApp group for the residents, from whom the management team gets feedback and comments and tends to their needs quickly.

“Those on the committee have to be predominantly people who live here [at Teega] full-time,” says Sukhjeet. This ensures that the committee is well versed with circumstances at the development and is more equipped to deal with the issues, he adds.

“We’ve always maintained that the committee should be made up of people who are hands-on, who see things. They know what’s going on and what needs to be [done] rather than being an armchair [member]. It is a challenge but we are lucky to have good leadership and a chairman who tries to harness the strengths of various parties to mould the group dynamics.”

Teega has a maintenance fee of RM3.10 per share unit across all of its components. “No one raised an issue about the [maintenance fee] at the AGM. Everybody is happy,” says Saw.

Cheah says that more importantly, it is how the funds are managed. “Is everybody trying to look out for themselves or is everybody looking to build a great community here?

“I think what Teega has managed to achieve is to build a great community. The [committee members] are very receptive to not only their [own units] but to the entire development as well, whether it is the walkways [at the commercial component] that need to be upgraded or the lift lobby [at the residential component] that needs to be [fixed].

“Having a good mix of committee members and a selection criteria are critical to ensure that the money is well spent on all of the components rather than on just one component, in terms of maintenance and upgrading.”

Will there be a revision of the maintenance fee? “It is unlikely for us to change the maintenance fee unless the JMB strongly thinks so,” he says.

Teega was not spared from the impact of the Covid-19 lockdowns, which included the collection rate. However, due to the healthy collection rate before the pandemic, the JMB was able to mobilise a Covid debt relief programme, whereby residents who were able to pay three months of their maintenance charges up front would get the third month free, says Sukhjeet.

“When we took over in September last year, we accrued a sizeable debt and we started to issue letters of demand. We have reduced the debt by almost a third.” He adds that the current collection rate at Teega is 95%.

Meanwhile, Lim, who has an engineering background, has found ways to minimise electricity consumption at the development. According to him, Teega started its energy-saving plan in 2019 after he noticed that the development had been using a lot of electricity, which led him to study the consumption patterns.

In 2022, the property manager decided to implement Tenaga Nasional Bhd’s Enhance Time of Use (ETOU) tariff, which contributed to a cost savings of 6% to 8% on their bills each month. In addition, all of the lights in the common areas have been replaced with LED bulbs.

“We implemented LED lighting in all the common areas. What makes the LED lighting different is that it can go into idle mode. In a lot of places, the LED bulbs are installed with a motion sensor, whereas the LED bulbs that we implemented to go into dim mode emit only 3 watts [when no one is around],” says Lim.

Another initiative that he and his team are exploring is a “special coating” to be applied on the main switchboard and distribution board panel, as well as the motor and pumps termination ports, to reduce electricity consumption by 5%. Lim says the plan is currently in the mock-up stage and the property manager is working with a Singaporean company to implement it in August.

Community building has been an essential component of the JMB’s goal to create a vibrant and flourishing community in Teega and Puteri Harbour as a whole.

JMB president’s Saw points out that before they could build a vibrant community, solving basic details such as tending to the needs of the residents and any property maintenance needed are key. “When everyone is happy, then only can we make a vibrant community,” he adds.

Saw notes that initiatives have been taken to build a vibrant community. “[Quick] response from SCM is very important because sometimes people have certain complaints that must be looked into immediately. When people are happy, that’s where a vibrant community comes in. It will then allow us, the JMB, to further engage with the master developer [UEM Sunrise] of Puteri Harbour to bring in more F&B and commercial activities for people to come to this area.”

As part of the initiatives to build a vibrant community, retailers at Teega Walk provide discounts for the communities in Teega as well as the wider Puteri Harbour area. “This is to encourage the residents here and their neighbouring residents to patronise Teega Walk,” he says.

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