Auction date for hotel, super store plots reset

Daewoo and Nishat to compete for the prize on September 10.

LAHORE:

The Lahore Development Authority (LDA) has rescheduled the open auction of plots earmarked for a five-star hotel and a super store in the Finance and Trade Centre in Johar Town for September 10, 2011.

The plots measuring 114 kanals and 96 kanals respectively were previously to be auctioned off on August 23, 2011.

The change in the date of auction was made in a meeting of the LDA’s governing body. DCO Ahad Khan Cheema chaired the meeting.

LDA has planned to develop a business hub in the area. In the newly proposed Finance and Trade Centre, besides a five-star hotel and a super store, sites for banks, multinational offices, trade towers have also been set aside.

Working paper for the meeting said that two investors had shown interest in purchasing the sites in the open auction. Daewoo International is one of those investors. Sajjid Bajwa, the representative of Daewoo, said the company was interested in purchasing the two or one of the sites and had requested the Authority to allow use of the basement for a future bus terminal. The LDA governing body hasn’t made any decision regarding Daewoo’s request.

Mahmood Akhtar, the Nishat Mills group director, also said his company was interested in purchasing both sites.

Akhtar requested the Authority to delay the auction till after Eidul Fitr, as it was not possible to raise Rs240m (10 per cent of the total amount of both plots) in Ramazan. The governing body has decided to change the auction date to September 10.

The meeting also decided to name the housing scheme at Ferozepur Road, measuring 45,000 kanals LDA City. The other new scheme measuring 10,000 kanals on Raiwind Road will be called LDA Avenue-II. The area has been identified and land acquisition to develop the societies will start soon. Land for these schemes will be acquired on the pattern of the Defence Housing Authority. In order to avoid litigation, land owners will be granted ‘exemption’ of land in the form of 25 per cent of the developed plots through negotiations.  However, land owners will have to pay the development charges against the ‘exempted’ plots.

In compliance of orders passed by Lahore High Court, LDA has decided to allot a 10-marla plot to SM Saleem in Sabzazar Housing Scheme in lieu of his land measuring 19 marlas that had been acquired by LDA for Allama Iqbal Town. The Authority has also decided to collect the 1990 market price along with 20 per cent encroachment charges from the residents of Plot No 469, Block C, Faisal Town.





Published in The Express Tribune, August 16^th, 2011.