Nigeria’s President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu is set to flag off the construction of 3,112 housing units at the Karsana area of the Federal Capital Territory.
The groundbreaking exercise, scheduled for Thursday 8th of February 2024, is part of a Public-Private Partnership project signed in December 2023 between the Ministry and a consortium of companies comprising Continental Civil and General Construction Limited and Ceezali Limited for a total of 100,000 housing units nationwide.
The first phase of 20,000 housing units is set to be delivered in the FCT, out of which 3,112 units are to be constructed at the Karsana site.
The ground-breaking exercise to be conducted by the President will mark the official launch of the Renewed Hope Cities and Estates programme, initiated by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development to increase the housing stock in the country and bridge the prevailing housing deficit. The Cities will have a minimum of 1,000 housing units per site in one location in each of the six geo-political zones of the country and the FCT, while the Estates will have a minimum of 500 housing units per site in the remaining thirty (30) States.
The Renewed Hope Cities and Estates, as the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Ahmed Musa Dangiwa has continued to emphasise that, will be designed as integrated living communities targeting all income brackets, and comprising one-bedroom blocks of flats, two-bedroom blocks of flats, and three-bedroom blocks of flats targeting low – medium income earners; two-bedroom terraces, four-bedroom terraces, four-bedroom duplexes, and five-bedroom duplexes targeting high-income earners.
The PPP project at Karsana is being funded by the developers who also sourced the land, while the Ministry is creating the enabling environment and will facilitate access by off-takers for the houses from subscribers to the National Housing Fund (NHF) Scheme managed by the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), an agency under the Ministry. The project is the first in a series that the Ministry will be embarking on in the coming weeks. Others are the 2,500 Renewed Hope City housing units at the Ibeju-Lekki Coastal City, Lagos, 500-housing unit Renewed Hope Estate in Kano and 250 housing units in twelve (12) states, two in each geopolitical zone, as Renewed Hope Estates in Ogun, Oyo, Akwa Ibom, Delta, Abia, Ebonyi, Nasarawa, Benue, Yobe, Gombe, Katsina and Sokoto.
At the core of the Renewed Hope Cities and Estates programme is the cross-subsidy component where 80% of the housing units developed will be sold at commercial rate while 20% will be sold at concessionary rates to low- and medium-income Nigerians who are members of the Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress. The idea is to deploy profits made from the commercial units as a subsidy for the units reserved for low- and medium-income earners.
Also notable are the numerous ownership options available to Nigerians aimed at enhancing the affordability of the houses. These include single-digit, 30-year mortgage loans to be provided by the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, Rent-to-Own options where beneficiaries can move in and pay towards homeownership in monthly, quarterly, or annual instalments, and Outright Purchases for high-income earners.
It would be recalled that the President approved N100bn for the Ministry in the 2023 Supplementary budget and N18.9billion in the 2024 budget for the implementation of the Renewed Hope Cities and Estates as well as Urban and Slum Upgrading programmes. The Renewed Hope Cities and Estates project also made the list of the President’s Top 10 projects for 2024, spurring widespread optimism about his commitment to the project.
Dominica Nwabufo
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