http://www.mmail.com.my/story/splendour-great-outdoors-52639Splendour in the great outdoors
ZARA, a knowledge worker, is thrilled to bits with her dream home she recently bought via a balloting exercise due to the overwhelming number of registrants.
Hers is a RM1.80 million semi-detached house on one of the eight islandenclaves at SP Setia Bhd’s high-end RM3 billion Setia Eco Glades freehold residential development right next to the Cyberjaya Lake Garden. Expected to be completed in 2015 are about 920 link villas, semi-dees and bungalows out of the total 2,400 units which will include condominiums at a later stage.
“I can still remember vividly waking up to birds chirping, the sweet scent of wild flowers and refreshing sight of dew on the grass at the place where I lived as a little girl … tree branches heavy with fruit, the brook teeming with small shes and meandering by a bamboo grove, the tiny tadpoles in puddles of water after the rain, the sound of crickets at night,” Zara reminisces about her idyllic childhood days in Kuala Lumpur when the pace of life and real estate development was much less rapid.
“All these memories of nature are coming back to me now … it’s a wonderful feeling and I just can’t wait to move in in three years’ time!
“Home, sometimes, can be the most welcoming retreat to get away from it all,” beams the family-oriented Zara, who has visions of grandchildren running around her new house one day.
Zara is among the growing number of homebuyers who choose to live in environmentally responsible developments such as Setia Eco Glades which is targeting professionals working in the surrounding multinational corporations.
Last month, they were invited to the Indoor Garden Tea Party-cum-soft launch in Cyberjaya of its Lepironia Gardens two-storey semi-dees priced from RM1.70 million, says Dianne Chan, head of sales and marketing at Setia Eco Glades Sdn Bhd.
Chan, who is part of the same team that also conceptualised Setia Eco Park in Shah Alam, Selangor, says response to the earlier launches of Setia Eco Glades units had been so staggering that registrants had to ballot for their preferred units.
Fully sold out thus far are Liu Li Gardens Phase 1 link villas (104 units priced from RM1.05 million) and Charm of Nusantara bungalows, semidees and link villas (75 units priced from RM2.40 million, RM1.80 million and RM1.20 million respectively).
Home on the glades Setia Eco Glades is a 70:30 joint venture between SP Setia and Setia Haruman Sdn Bhd, Cyberjaya’s master developer. It is SP Setia’s sixth eco-centric project, the first being Setia Eco Park in 2004 and is currently about 60% developed.
That was followed by Setia Eco Lakes in Vietnam in 2008; Setia Eco Gardens in Nusajaya, Iskandar Malaysia in Johor, in 2008; as well as Setia Eco Xuan in Vietnam and Setia Eco Cascadia in Nusajaya, Johor, in 2011.
According to Chan, Setia Eco Glades sits on 268 acres (presently under rubber and oil palm estates) of which 30% or 80 acres will comprise lakes and green spaces.
Its masterplan is based on Malaysia’s Green Building Index certification criteria and the development will incorporate, among others, building-integrated photovoltaic solar panels and rainwater harvesting in all homes, security via Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, and use of electric buses to transport people between neighbourhoods to reduce carbon emission.
On conservation, she says that as the original site was rich with flora and fauna, the team enlisted the help of the Forest Research Institute Malaysia, Malaysian Nature Society and Zoo Negara to safeguard the wildlife for relocation to the completed Setia Eco Glades to continue their natural life cycle. It will also be the new home to 1,300 native trees transplanted from the site.
Meanwhile, if it’s any indication of SP Setia’s environmental credibility and how Setia Eco Glades will turn out, Chan cites Setia Eco Park which has gained local and global recognition.
It won, among others, the International Real Estate Federation (Fiabci) Prix d’Excellence Award for Best Master Plan Development in 2007, the garden township’s Precinct 3 was named Best Residential (Low Rise) Development at the Fiabci Malaysia Property Award 2010, and it again won the Fiabci Prix d’Excellence Award in 2011 in the Residential (Low Rise) category.