Sustainable Development In Malaysia

1. INTRODUCTION

The major role of sustainable development model is among others to spur development activities through holistic involvement of all development sectors; in which, the contributions of housing sector is undeniable imperative. Housing is significantly close to everyone’s life, as the starting point of self-actualization process. Therefore, building up sustainable housing becomes crucial to help improving human quality of living. Through literature study on sustainable housing, ‘sustainable’ seems to mean everything in world. Priemus (2005) however, simplified it as ‘housing that is geared to meeting the needs of the current residents without compromising the ability of future generations of residents to meet their own needs’.

In order to support more development of socially sustainable housing, policy particularly in the form of development guidelines have been setup by the government through their planning authorities. Malaysia affirmed its policy on sustainable development in the 7th Malaysia Plan (GOM et al., 1996) in response to the Agenda 21 proposal. This plan described measures that have been taken on sustainable development in the period of the past Malaysian Plans and outlined new measures to be initiated during the implementation of the 7th Malaysian Plan (1996-2000) in order to enhance Malaysia’s ability to develop in a sustainable manner. The Ministry of Housing has enunciated a policy to meet these demands namely the National Housing Policy (NHP). The aims outlined in the NHP has put pressure on the housing industry to develop housing with sustainable housing elements. Hence, several programmes have been initiated by the government to raise the importance of sustainability in the development sector in Malaysia. Besides having the NHP to provide the direction and basis for the planning and development of the housing sector by all relevant ministries, departments and agencies at the federal, state and local levels as well as the private sector; National Green Technology Policy has also been issued to stand with four pillars

Through the new NHP, housing development will focus on the provision of adequate housing, as well as ensuring a safe, healthy and harmonious living environment equipped with complete public amenities and quality recreational facilities as mentioned in the Tenth Malaysia Plan (NHP, 2011). In line with sustainability concern by the government, its Thrust 5 and 6 respectively focusing on ‘Sustainability of the Housing Sector’ and ‘Enhancing the Level of Social Amenities, Basic Services and Liveable Environment’ promoting social sustainability in housing development. As housing innovations thereafter come in various forms, policies related to housing development have also been improved to facilitate this new trend of housing development, in a hope to achieve the social sustainability aspiration. This article attempts to identify the available policies that have been guiding the socially sustainable housing development in recent years. Following the discussion on recent literature of socially sustainable housing and the moves made in Malaysia in pursuing for sustainable housing, this article will then outline the approaches undertaken to achieve the above stated objective. Results will then be discussed and to be concluded by reflecting to the practices of housing suppliers at the selected research