Low-cost housing a challenge for capital’s administrators

CDA unable to complete existing schemes on time while aiming at new projects

ISLAMABAD: With housing, especially for the lower and middle income segments of the population, becoming dearer and rarer in the metropolis, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has failed to either complete housing schemes announced in recent years or launch new schemes.

In this regard, the CDA has in recent years announced a number of affordable housing schemes in the capital for this particular cross-section of the population, including Sectors I-14, D-12, E-12, I-15, I-16. These schemes were supposed to have smaller plots, between four and nine Marlas.

But for various reasons, the civic agency has been unable to complete these schemes.



Curiously, this phenomenon is not just restricted to schemes for the economically less fortunate. Housing for the rich too suffers from delays, hinting at a deeper malaise within the CDA.

In 2011, the agency had announced the Park Enclave--I housing scheme for the capital’s super  rich. The scheme had 700 plots with each around one Kanal in size.  The plots were auctioned off at a whopping Rs12 million each.

The project was slated to be completed in a short time frame of just one year. But the project  fell victim to the same familiar vices which have dogged other schemes in the capital. Its completion date was rescheduled multiple times and five years down the line, the CDA has only developed 80 per cent of the scheme.

“CDA has yet to take possession of land where streets 5 to 10 would be built, which means that the civic body is not in a position to give plots to the allottees in these streets,” a senior CDA official told The Express Tribune while requesting anonymity since he was not authorised to speak to the media.

Not only the CDA cannot hand over plots to allottees on lands it does not possess, the official added that the CDA’s engineering wing too has been hamstrung in initiating development work in these areas.

What is bizarre is that the CDA last year announced development of Park Enclave-II projects even though Enclave-I remains incomplete. The new project has 305 plots, each of one Kanal with a base price worked out at Rs20.5 million.



The authority had promised to develop this scheme too within a year’s time and hand over plots to their buyers by January-February 2017.

The authority raised around 25 per cent of the project’s cost from investors by auctioning the land before physically launching the project. Investors were given the option to deposit the remaining 75 per cent of the money in installments over a period of 12 months.

But with only five months till the CDA is due to hand over the plots, the body has been unable to secure approval for the project concept (PC-1) of the scheme.

Corruption the main hurdle

In the past, corruption coupled with red-tape were the main reasons why CDA could not launch new sectors or complete existing schemes on time. This was no more evident in the recently released audit report from the Auditor General of Pakistan which disclosed that the body had lost billions in illegal allotment of lands.

“The CDA has [at its disposal] more 4,000 acres lands in zone-IV, besides land in Kurri and other areas of the capital,” a CDA source told The Express Tribune. The source added that instead of developing new sectors on this land, it was being grabbed and encroached by influential and powerful mafias in connivance with senior officials of the authority.

Hope is now pinned on the new, powerful mayor of the city who also enjoys the  additional charge as CDA chairman. But it remains to be seen whether he would be able to overcome the many issues the local government faces and deliver low-cost housing.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 9^th, 2016.