Penang's state housing board has signed Paramount Property to rebuild Kampung Ujong Batu in Butterworth with 350 Rumah MutiaraKu affordable homes, and Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow has promised that eligible residents of the village will be rehoused free of charge.
Lembaga Perumahan Negeri Pulau Pinang (LPNPP) and Paramount Property (Butterworth) Sdn Bhd signed the development agreement in Seberang Jaya, the state government's Buletin Mutiara reported on 25 October 2026. The 350 homes are the first phase of a redevelopment to be carried out in stages, Penang Today reported. The two reports give different site areas: 15.87 acres in Buletin Mutiara, 6.19 hectares (about 15.3 acres) in Penang Today.
It took the state three attempts to find a builder. LPNPP called for proposals from 8 November 2024 to 17 February 2025, from 4 April to 5 August 2025 and from 12 November 2025 to 2 February 2026, and none drew an interested party, Buletin Mutiara reported. The state executive council on 22 April 2026 and the LPNPP procurement board on 7 May 2026 then agreed to negotiate directly, and Paramount came forward. Chow said the state wants only to recover the land cost borne by the private developer, which is why it puts no profit on projects of this kind. He also said the signing was only a start: plans have yet to be drawn up and planning permission obtained.
This is Rummah News' view: the signing is good news for a village that has waited, but the promise that matters to the people of Ujong Batu rests on two words, "penduduk yang layak" (eligible residents), and nobody has yet said what they mean. It could cover the registered owner of each house, every household living under one roof, or anyone who can show years of residence on land they never held title to. Each reading puts a different number of families into the new blocks. The reports we read also do not say how many families live in the kampung today, how big the replacement homes will be, or when work might start.
Penang has shown it can set those terms out early. When it announced this month that families in Kampung Manis, Perai, would swap their houses for new homes, it gave both the number of homes and their floor area, as Rummah News reported on 19 October. Ujong Batu deserves the same before the plans go in, not after.
The three empty tenders make the case stronger. A project on which the state takes no profit and existing residents pay nothing for their homes leaves a developer a thin margin, and for about 15 months no one wanted it. Direct negotiation got a deal signed, which is to the state's credit, but it also means the terms were never tested against a rival bid. Publishing them would answer the obvious questions: how many of the 350 units go to existing residents, how many are sold and at what price, and what Paramount receives in return.
Jeffrey Chew Sun Teong, Paramount's chief executive, said the company was committed to making sure the development takes account of an existing community with its own history. Chow said development must bring progress without sidelining "the welfare and rights of eligible residents". A published eligibility rule and allocation list would be the plainest way for both men to keep their word.
Sources: Buletin Mutiara (Penang state government), Penang Today.
