KUALA LUMPUR (June 15): Malaysia’s largest cities, especially its capital Kuala Lumpur, are packed with old developments that are ripe for renewal. However, for so long, very little redevelopment has taken place, especially for strata-divided buildings.

The requirement for a unanimous decision to be reached for a stratum subdivided building to be redeveloped under the Strata Titles Act 1985 made it almost impossible for any redevelopment to be undertaken.

“That (the requirement for unanimous agreement from all owners) makes urban redevelopment basically impossible. Worse than Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible,” says Minister of Housing and Local Government (KPKT) Nga Kor Ming when met at his office in Putrajaya.

According to the Strata Titles Act 1985 (Act 318), under Section 57, unanimous resolution needs to be achieved before any termination of the strata titles of a subdivided building can take place.

This resulted in only a few rare cases where a stratified building was acquired by a developer and redeveloped. In most cases, efforts to get all the owners of stratified units to agree to sell their parcels to a developer ended with a few holding out.

Therefore, KPKT has proposed for the threshold of getting the consent of strata owners to be lowered to 80%, through an Urban Renewal Act (URA), which is currently being drafted.

KPKT is targeting to submit the URA to Parliament by November. And Nga seems adamant to get it passed, as he says that Malaysia is 30 years behind other Asian nations in urban redevelopment.

"I sincerely believe that it (URA) will transform our cities and change the history of our country. We are 30 years behind (other Asian countries such as Singapore and Hong Kong). As a result, what happened [to our cities]?

"You go to Pandan, Cheras, Sentul, there are many slums in the city, not fit for human habitation anymore. Yet because of the current law, urban redevelopment is impossible,” says Nga.

Nevertheless, if old, dilapidated flats unfit for human habitation are the main concern, shouldn't the government do something with the maintenance, repair and upgrading of these flats, rather than drafting a law that makes it easier for property developers to buy en masse?

There are also concerns that the proposed URA with a lower threshold of acceptance for redevelopment would lead to gentrification of cities, whereby low-income residents are pushed out of an area as it gets redeveloped into glitzy malls and commercial buildings.

However, the potential for redevelopment is huge. The redevelopment of some 139 pieces of land in Kuala Lumpur alone could generate an estimated gross development value of RM332.5 billion, according to Nga.

Read the discussion on the proposed URA in the June 17 issue of The Edge Malaysia weekly.

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