Public Housing Projects in Brunei
The Ministry of Development through the Housing Development Department (HDD) and the Public Works Department has been working very hard to ensure that there are about 10,000 housing units be available by the end of 2012. This is in addition to the 7,500 housing units being built by BEDB to be completed by 2014. MOD's housing projects are generally ready to be completed by end of year 2012 with the exception of a few. Just in case, there are people interested in the progress of MOD's housing projects, I am pleased to attach the following statistics which can be downloaded if need be:
Comments
I believe the government is proposing very good initiatives to reduce the burden of providing more housing, by building vertical apartments. It helps to free more land, available for more economic and development projects.
However, if you look the statistics (banci penduduk), we can see that each household in Brunei has at least 7 members living under one roof. while the proposed size of the apartment (exhibited in the mall) is very small and will be unable to accommodate 7 household members.
the government need to re-design the nature of the apartment,by making it bigger or at least making it two storey apartment like those in Flat Perumahan Beribi (under MoD itself), but bigger. If bgger than in Flat Perumahan Beribi, then they will not see it as "rumah persinggahan sementara" but as "rumah Tetap".
In many cases, people renovate their houses as family members expand. But when you have apartment, you cannot expand it further. Hence, people will always looking for a new housing outside. But how about the poor income people who cannot afford a bigger house and depends on the government to provide housing, but with large number of families?
Large families size living under a small apartment, is similar like those in UK cramped housing flats during 1970s and 1980s, where it led to various social problems.
In summary, we are not against vertical housing, but what we are concern, is that the size is too small. There is no medium for us to voice our concern and this is the only way for us to get you to listen our great concern. I wish there is a medium for the ministers or high ranking officials to understand the grass root problems. Thank you