Low-income housing units: RDA’s 20-year headache won’t stop anytime soon

The civic body has taken much longer in acquiring land for a housing scheme than expected.

RAWALPINDI:

Finding land for its first-ever housing scheme has been an uphill task for the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA).

The authority has been unable to find a suitable area in or around the city to initiate the project, which was proposed two decades ago, said a senior RDA official. The housing scheme is meant to ease the shortage of houses for low-income inhabitants of the city.

A recent survey conducted by the provincial housing department found that the demand for houses has been on the rise from the lower and middle income strata of society, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Over 100,000 residential units are believed to be needed in the city, where the majority of new inhabitants have been coming from Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Discussions with property dealers and RDA officials revealed that though a good number of private housing societies exist around Rawalpindi for the wealthy, less attention has been given to the needs of low-income citizens.

“The demand for small plots and houses is always on the rise as a majority of citizens cannot afford houses in posh areas and private housing societies,” said Khalid Abbasi a property dealer in the Sadiqabad area. Land in urban areas is very expensive but people will always want affordable accommodation with all necessary civic amenities, Abbasi added.

The RDA’s latest efforts to get a suitable piece of land near Loi Bher were stopped mainly due to legal wrangling with a private housing society. The fact that the civic body has always tried to obtain land on the basis of land-sharing formula has not helped the matter.

Recently appointed RDA Director General (DG) Chaudhry Naseer Ahmed confirmed that they had not been able to find any landowner ready to colloborate with them in the project.

The RDA tried to make arrangements with a person to start its housing project on 2,000 kanals near the Motorway, but the proposal never got off the ground as the person did not own enough land, the DG said.

Responding to a question about future efforts on the project, the DG said they were in contact with the owners of two private housing societies — one near Adiala Village and other near Daghal Village — as their developers have been unable to complete these projects and have shown an interest in partnering with the RDA.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 14^th,  2011.