Plans being made to 'inject more development' on Kwasa Damansara site, says report

KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 17): Plans are “being put forward” to inject more development on the Kwasa Damansara project site, The Star reported today.

This may involve “opening up larger portions of land to private sector developers including government-linked companies”, said the report.

So far, “bumiputra developers were invited to bid for land which was already carved out with pre-determined plans for a certain type of residential and/or commercial buildings”, added the report with “most of the contracts given out in 2015”.

Work was reportedly planned to start after the bidding but things did not take off “when the stringent lending conditions were imposed by banks”.

In the latest development, a source told The Star “about 10 companies have been identified” as preferred developers, with the “list” to be submitted for board approval by the end of this year.

The source added that the board “had earlier given its approval to open the land for development to other developers, both bumiputra and non-bumiputra”.

“Now that there are about five to six bumiputra developers, it does not matter whether they are bumiputra or non-bumiputra developers.

“The focus will be more about branding and expertise,” said the source said.

The source also added that there are plans “being floated around” for EPF to build the 10,000 affordable homes there “instead of parcelling that out to developers”.

Kwasa Damansara belongs to the Employees Provident Fund (EPF), while the master developer Kwasa Land Sdn Bhd is an EPF wholly-owned subsidiary.

Currently, the MRT Sungai Buloh Depot for the Sungai Buloh-Kajang MRT line is located on Kwasa Damansara while the EPF headquarters is also located there.

The township is being built on a 25-year development time table.

Finance minister Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz in his Budget 2021 speech on Nov 6 said EPF would be go ahead with the development of Kwasa Damansara.

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