Creating waterfront homes where there is no water

ISKANDAR MALAYSIA (May 22): What do you do if you want to have waterfront homes but the “water” is a bit beyond reach? Well, you could “bring” the water to your doorstep, literally. That is exactly what Haute Property Sdn Bhd, a joint-venture company of BRDB Developments Sdn Bhd and UEM Sunrise Bhd, is doing at its exclusive waterfront resort home development Emerald Bay in Puteri Harbour, Iskandar Malaysia in Johor.

CEO of Haute Property Teh Ku Yong told TheEdgeProperty.com the company has invested heavily in creating the infrastructure for this unique luxurious development, which includes building a canal that channels water from the sea into the development, as well as lock gates to control the water levels.

International experts were called in, including US-based WATG Architect and a company from Gold Coast Australia, to design the water system and project planning. According to Teh, at least RM60 million had been invested in building the infrastructure, even before the company began selling the first house in the development.

The developer took one and a half years to build the canal, which has a width between 30m and 60m. The canal links Emerald Bay to the open sea and Puteri Harbour.

The 111-acre freehold development, which carries a gross development value (GDV) of about RM4 billion, comprises 12 phases to be built over eight years. BRDB took over this piece of land from Dubai World, the Emirate of Dubai’s flagship investment arm back in 2011. It then embarked on the joint-venture development with UEM Sunrise, the landowner.

“It was a piece of land with some parts mangrove and some parts hillside. Instead of reshaping the topography, we chose to keep its original topography with minor reshaping,” Teh said.

Construction began in 2012 with phase 1A, comprising 82 units of three-storey villas and four-storey courtyard homes with berths as well as semi-dees. They have been completed and handed over to their owners in January this year. Phase 1A has a total gross development value (GDV) of RM360 million.

These properties offer lot sizes ranging between 1,916 sq ft and 8,331 sq ft, with built-up sizes from 3,292 sq ft to 5,896 sq ft.

The minimum selling price starts from RM3.1 million for a three-storey courtyard home without direct access to the water, to RM10.5 million for a villa with berth. Residents of the units with berths can park their boats at their own berths. These units also have their private lap pools.

As for the semi-dee owners who do not have their own dock, they could enjoy all the facilities in the common area — which is a shared dock — as well as the clubhouse, which offers a swimming pool, meeting room and children games room.

Teh noted that Phase 1A had achieved a take-up rate of 82% within the first year of its launch. About 65% of the buyers are Malaysians, with a majority being professionals. The rest of the buyers are expats who are working in the Iskandar Malaysia region, as well as international investors.

“Malaysians are avid travellers and are being exposed to various cultures and ways of living. Therefore, they desire a different kind of lifestyle. The waterfront living lifestyle is now in demand regionally, especially in Singapore, China and Hong Kong,” he said.

From Emerald Bay, residents sailing out through the canal will need to inform the management to open the lock gates and register themselves at the CIQ (Customs, Immigration and Quarantine) checkpoint in Puteri Harbour.

Challenges in building stratified houses

Besides the construction process, one of the biggest challenges in developing Emerald Bay was complying with strata management requirements.

For a normal township development, a developer could sub-divide the land into smaller parcels with different strata titles.

For Emerald Bay, as the whole development is connected or surrounded by the canal, which is also the common area for the community, how then could the waters be sub-divided into different parcels?

This means that to comply with the Strata Management Act, the company will need to plan forward for all the phases.

“Forward planning cost us a lot of time but after the long process, everything is now in place,” Teh said.

Upcoming launch

The next launch at Emerald Bay will be 12 units of villas in a project called The Island — also known as phase 1B. The total GDV is around RM150 million. These three-storey stratified waterfront villas have a land area of 7,471 sq ft and built-up size of 6,728 sq ft. “Phase 1B is now nearing completion and is expected to be completed by the second quarter this year,” Teh noted.

Each freehold villa comes with a private berth, lift and lap pool. The selling price ranges between RM12 million and RM18 million.

The company also plans to launch two new phases by the end of the year, including 38 units of villas with berths and a 56-unit, low-density four-storey apartment project. Prices and built-up sizes have yet to be finalised.

The site is currently only about 20% developed, but the developer is in no hurry to roll out the remaining phases.

“We are not only building houses here, but also making Emerald Bay an address that could symbolise one’s status,” he said. Thus, it is targeting both local and international high-net-worth individuals.

Iskandar’s potential

Despite the current soft property market, Teh believes things will be better next year as he has observed some positive signs.

“The sales performance for new landed properties has done well recently, supported by local demand,” explained Teh, who is also the chief operating officer of BRDB’S Johor Bahru property division.

“Rising building and land costs will continue to support housing price levels. Once the infrastructure is completed and when the general market sentiment improves, Iskandar Malaysia will see greater economic and property market growth,” he said.

For Emerald Bay, Teh said, the waterfront concept is also the first and one-of-its-kind resort home design in Iskandar as well as Malaysia, making it appealing to high-net-worth individuals who are looking for a different kind of lifestyle.

Looking forward, he expects the proposed Johor Bahru-Singapore Rapid Transit System and the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore high-speed rail to transport people from other parts of Malaysia or Singapore to the Iskandar region for work or business.

This story first appeared in TheEdgeProperty.com pullout on May 19, 2017. Download TheEdgeProperty.com pullout here for free.