A total of 20.7 percent of houses under the '1 Million Affordable Housing' programme has been completed as of Dec 31 last year, said the Urban Well-being, Housing and Local Government Ministry.

According to the ministry, the status of the programme was among issues discussed in the National Housing Council (NHC) meeting chaired by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak at Perdana Putra yesterday.

The ministry said 21.7 percent of the project was still in the construction phase, while another 41.3 percent was in the planning stage.

"Based on discussions on the implementation of the affordable housing programme, each implementing agency is committed towards the materialisation of the vision," said the ministry in a statement issued after the meeting.

According to the ministry, the meeting also took note of the legislative framework involved in the formation of the National Public Housing Management Corporation as decided by the Prime Minister in the NHC meeting in 2015.

The ministry said the legislation framework would take into consideration the role of the corporation which proposed to implement policies concerning public housing; to promote public welfare in public housing; as well as to monitor the quality, and the demand and supply of public housing.

As such, a Joint Implementation Committee will be formed to assist the corporation in managing the process of approval and applications, the development of the houses and coordinating all government entities to facilitate and expedite the approval and implementation of the development of public housing.

Meanwhile, the ministry said the NHC would also take into consideration the review of the National Housing Policy for the period 2018-2022 or DRN 2.0.

"The study for the publication of DRN 2.0 will focus on current efforts on geospatial aspects, the economy and the social well-being. The final report for this study will be tabled in Oct 2017," it said.

DRN is a guide that began publications in 2013 for a five-year period of usage and has become the base for the planning and development of the housing sector for all relevant ministries, departments and agencies as well as the private sector.

According to the ministry, the room for improvement in DRN 2.0 had been identified based on six main issues that frequently become constraints in housing development.

The issues are the inability to buy homes which is becoming more serious; mismatches between supply and demands according to location; the number of agencies involved in the preparation of the houses; ownership patterns and demographic imbalance; management and maintenance of available houses; as well as the absence of a stock inventory system and integrated homebuyers in each location.

- Bernama