Analysing community perceptions on incentive strategies in safeguarding a Malay heritage village: the case of kampung Morten, Melaka

Over-commercialism and the threats posed by uncontrolled development have slowly been eroding the cultural heritage stock, especially in the case of the traditional settlements. This paper reveals the community perceptions and feedbacks on the incentives given in safeguarding the uniqueness of a Malay heritage village known as Kampung Morten in Melaka. This study set out to determine the overarching question, which was, whether the incentive programmes formulated for the community have been found to be suitable to the aspirations and ‘real’ needs of the local communities. Mixed method approaches were used in this study which included document reviews, observations, structured interviews and a questionnaire survey; and involved the residents living in the village. This study evaluates the findings concerning the present policy framework, for understanding and managing the cultural heritage incentives programme in safeguarding the heritage village to establish a sustainable community. This paper has been able to reveal several issues on the conservation incentives policy, most notably of which is the incompatibility of the local communities’ needs with the programme outcomes

Sikap Masyarakat Terhadap Program Kitar Semula: Kajian Kes Di Daerah Batu Pahat, Johor

A recycling programme is one of the strategies implemented to avoid the risk on increasing number of domestic waste at national dumping sites. Numerous efforts and initiatives are carrying out by the government to reduce waste management cost burdened to national local authorities which yearly contributes about RM1 billion. There are many significant factors contribute to community behaviors towards this particular programmed. In general, it can be classified into two (i) behavioral factor and, (ii) community participation in recycling programmed. This research intends to understand the community behavior towards recycling programmed in the district of Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia. A total of 383 respondents were selected in a random sampling within the municipality and major town in the district. The result of the study indentified that most of the respondents are not involved with recycling programmed in their locality. Therefore, the authorities should consider an integrated and holistic approach in order to reform the recycling programmed to the local context and facilitate to change the mentality among those communities

Influence of Location Attributes on Home Buyers’ Purchase Decision

Owning a home at a bad location is detrimental to its market value. Besides, demographic forces have influenced the demand for housing over the past decades. This study identifies the type of location attributes and demographic characteristics influences on housing purchase decisions of home buyers in Iskandar Malaysia. This research intends to collect data through questionnaire. The respondents are the house owners of Taman Nusa Sentral. The data is then analysed with correlation to study the relationship between demographic and location variables. Most of the demographic characteristics, except Gender and Income, have significant influences on location facilities and services when it comes to house purchase decision. This study is able to overcome the problems of low house owning rate and oversupply and provides preferable location attributes to the housing developers

Conservation of Living Heritage: Elements in Conserving Portuguese Community’ Cultural Heritage

Rapid urban development in today’s cities poses significant threats to heritage site with deterioration and destruction to the heritage by introduced pollution, political war, growing tourism activities, and natural disaster. The concern for the safeguarding of heritage materials and intangible assets has begun with a series of conservation practice that begins with material conservation, values conservation and living conservation approaches. Conservation of living heritage is by emphasizing the role of core community living in traditional settlement inside heritage area. The city of Melaka was declared as World Heritage Site in 2008 and the living heritage in the traditional village of Portuguese Settlement risking with the extinction of cultural heritage in the future due to insufficient cultural heritage conservation management. The purpose of this article is to highlight the conservation elements being used to conserve living heritage particularly for living heritage community. This article was conducted using qualitative research, by using literature and document analysis on relevant literatures, reports and standards. The result revealed the main factors contributed in conserving the living heritage came from elements of community participation, awareness, good communication, capacity building, and stakeholders’ involvement. The findings indicated that strong relationship among the elements will build a sustainable community within the heritage site particularly for the core community and at the same time conserving its heritage value

Applying Social Return on Investment (SROI) to Build a Sustainable Flood Recovery Project

Sustainability is becoming increasingly important agenda for governments, organisations and academic institutions due to the environmental and social challenges in the world today. Sustainability is no longer all about the environmental aspects but also the social and economic aspects, which can only be achieved by attaining an effective balance between these three aspects. In this regard, a study of Social Return on Investment (SROI) is critical in fostering the means to manifest the importance of these goals and it urges a new approach to define a full value of sustainability. A review of the social impact sectors identifies that SROI is the most effective approach with a solid implementation framework. Therefore, the concept of SROI is reviewed in this paper, as well as its application to government investment in flood recovery projects. This paper is prepared by conducting a series of literature reviews in order to establish a foundation for a new insight for contribution to knowledge. The researchers provides a step-by-step account of SROI implementation on a flood recovery project named “New Permanent Housing†(Rumah Kekal Baharu) RKB project in Kuala Krai, Kelantan. Applying the SROI methodology to the flood recovery project was feasible and provided guidance and interpretation into the project’s impact. Thus, the SROI framework can be a valuable tool for stakeholders to assess the sustainability of social investments in a sustainable environment.   Keywords: SROI, sustainability, sustainable flood recovery project, social impact

Housing decision making technical information: an approach for improving quality housing delivery during the initiation development phase process

Incomplete communication between decision maker, proposer and secretariat happened due to time constraint and distance's factor among them in decision making process for housing development project. Consequently convenience to information becomes limited due to the restricted amount of data given by developer. The problem is to make the best decision in construction; it must come from various information sources and specialists, especially in housing where the sector is near to the public (social) objective. Due to these decision making problems, developer faces a late delivery and sick housing project conflict. This paper aims to identify the technical decision making information for housing development at the initiation phase in Malaysia. Delphi method is employed by using questionnaire survey which involved 50 private developers for the first round of data collection. However, only 34 developers contributed to the second round of the data collection process. At the last round, only 12 developers were finalised as the main contributor in the final process. As a result, the findings are work schedule, location and size of project are most necessary information in technical information part which are required during decision making for housing development among Malaysian developers. Moreover, the advancement of skill must be improved and developers should not be easily pleased with their achievement as the information technology advances at a pace we can hardly keep up with

Housing Decision Making Technical Information: An Approach for Improving Quality Housing Delivery during the Initiation Development Phase Process

Incomplete communication between decision maker, proposer, and secretariat happened due to time constraint and distance's factor among them in the decision-making process for housing development project. Consequently, the convenience of information becomes limited due to the restricted amount of data given by the developer. The problem is to make the best decision in construction; it must come from various information sources and specialists, especially in housing where the sector is near to the public (social) objective. Due to these decision-making problems, the developer faces a late delivery and sick housing project conflict. This paper aims to identify the technical decision making information for housing development at the initiation phase in Malaysia. Delphi method is employed by using questionnaire survey which involved 50 private developers for the first round of data collection. However, only 34 developers contributed to the second round of the data collection process. At the last round, only 12 developers were finalized as the main contributor in the final process. As a result, the findings are work schedule, location and size of project are most necessary information in technical information part which are required for decision making for housing development among Malaysian developers. Moreover, the advancement of skill must be improved and developers should not be easily pleased with their achievement as the information technology advances at a pace we can hardly keep up with

Decision making methods at initiation phase for housing development

Late delivery and sick housing project problems were attributed to poor decision making. These problems are the string of housing developer that prefers to create their own approach based on their experiences and expertise with the simplest approach by just applying the obtainable standards and rules in decision making. This paper seeks to identify the decision making methods for housing development at the initiation phase in Malaysia. The research involved Delphi method by using questionnaire survey which involved 50 numbers of developers as samples for the primary stage of collect data. However, only 34 developers contributed to the second stage of the information gathering process. At the last stage, only 12 developers were left for the final data collection process. Finding affirms that Malaysian developers prefer to make their investment decisions based on simple interpolation of historical data and using simple statistical or mathematical techniques in producing the required reports. It was suggested that they seemed to skip several important decision- making functions at the primary development stage. These shortcomings were mainly due to time and financial constraints and the lack of statistical or mathematical expertise among the professional and management groups in the developer organisations