The Challenges of Maintaining and Managing High Rise Buildings: Commercial Vs Residential Buildings

The issues of maintaining and managing high-rise buildings in Malaysia have been a matter for discussionfor a long time. This has led to significant amendments of the rules and regulations that have governed the stratified buildings in Malaysia. Now, the Strata Management Act 2013 (Strata Management Act 2013 Act 757), which came into force on June 1, 2015, is the main reference document that outlines the roles and responsibilities of the COB and JMB in the maintenance and management of high rise/stratified buildings. Act 757 recognised the formation of two main entities in terms of managing and maintaining the stratified buildings; these are the Commissioner of Building (COB) and the Joint Management Building (JMB) before the formation of the Management Corporation (MC). For the purposes of this article, the study focused solely on the MC of the commercial buildings perspective in Jitra, Kedah Malaysia because that particular building was only the commercial building to have been established by the MC. The Act 757 clearly stipulated specific duties and powers for the JMB/MC in terms of managing and maintaining the sub-divided stratified buildings, without mentioning whether that high-rise properties were residential or commercial. Therefore, this study aims to identify the challenges of maintaining and managing high-rise commercial buildings compared with the residential buildings from the perspective of the MC. The data were collected using the face-to-face interview method in order to glean in-depth information, which is in line with the qualitative approach. The respondent of this study was the Chairman of the MC of the commercial buildings in Jitra, Kedah Malaysia which was selected as a case study. The finding showed that, compared with the JMBS/MCs of residential buildings, the MCs of the commercial buildings were required to perform extra tasks such as tenancy management, marketing strategy and prolonging the investment sustainability. Failure to perform those particular tasks may jeopardise the business sustainability of the particular buildings.