Shareda Pushes CCC and Green Building Incentives with Kota Kinabalu's New Mayor

The Sabah Housing and Real Estate Developers Association (Shareda) is lobbying Kota Kinabalu City Hall (DBKK) to formally adopt the Certificate of Completion and Compliance (CCC) in place of the older Occupation Certificate (OC) system, while also pushing for density bonuses that reward developers who build green.

What happened

Shareda president Datuk Chua Soon Ping has been engaging Kota Kinabalu's new Mayor, whose background is in income tax, to explain why CCC benefits both developers and buyers. Under the Uniform Building By-Law 2022 — enforced nationally from June 1, 2023, and gazetted for practice in Sabah in late December 2022 — CCC replaces the OC's slower, sequential sign-off process with fixed timelines: the Fire and Rescue Department has seven days to respond, consultants submit forms to 22 agencies with a 14-working-day feedback window, and CCC can be issued within seven working days if agencies stay silent. The older OC process required every agency's approval before issuance, often stretching delivery timelines by months.

Separately, Shareda has proposed that DBKK grant developers building green-certified projects a 10–12% density bonus — extra units per development — mirroring an incentive structure already used in Kuala Lumpur. The proposal has been submitted to the State Government and endorsed by the Chief Minister.

Why it matters

"So to ensure quick delivery of the projects to buyers, we prefer the CCC," Chua said, framing the push as a way to get completed homes into owners' hands faster. Faster certification means faster occupancy — and faster occupancy means landscaping, turf, and exterior finishing work compresses into a tighter window at the tail end of each project.

What this means for developers and project managers

If DBKK adopts CCC on Shareda's timeline, expect handover schedules across Kota Kinabalu's residential and commercial projects to tighten. That has two direct implications for anyone managing a development:

• Book landscaping and turf installation earlier in the project timeline, not as an afterthought once construction wraps — a compressed certification window leaves less slack for exterior work before handover.
• The green building density bonus raises the stakes for landscaping quality. If developers gain 10–12% more sellable units by hitting green-certified standards, quality lawns, planting, and outdoor amenity space become part of the business case, not just curb appeal.

The bottom line

Faster approvals and green-building incentives both point the same direction: more Sabah developments moving from groundbreaking to handover on tighter schedules, with landscaping quality carrying more weight than before. Developers who line up turf and grounds work early will be the ones ready when CCC — and the bonus units it can unlock — come through.