The Lagos State Government in partnership with stakeholders in building industry on Friday begun working on the modalities for the construction of 100,000 houses.
The stakeholders are the Lagos State Ministries of Housing and Lands, EchoStone Nigeria, a property development firm, Family Homes Funds and Lagos State Building Investment Company (LBIC) Plc.
Others are Lagos State Ministries of Justice, Physical Planning and Urban Development, the Lagos State Urban Renewal Agency and various sister agencies of the state government.
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The stakeholders converged at the “Transaction Structuring Workshop for proposed 100,000 Affordable Housing Programme in Partnership with Lagos State Government” to fashion out ways of starting the housing project in June.
The survey plans, layouts, land acquisition, encroachment issues, dealing with land grabbers, financing, security, regularization of titles were extensively discussed.
The government, developer and financiers agreed for the lawyers to proffer solutions to the challenging areas in order to reach a compromise that would be beneficial to all.
The state Commissioner for Housing, Mr Gbolahan Lawal, said that the state government had an initial plan to construct 20,000 houses by year 2020.
Lawal said EchoStone was given the contract to build 2,000 out of the 20,000, adding that the firm had demonstrated capacity to do more by introducing a technology that speed up delivery.
“Housing Finance is key, Mrs Bashar, (Head, Directorate of Commercial Law, Ministry of Justice), get your team, at the end of this workshop, we should be able to have an MOU,” Lawal said.
The commissioner said that investors had confidence in Lagos State Government because it had a reputation for continuity.
He said that the state government was going to target old housing schemes and abandoned lands in some areas to be aquired for the project.
The EchoStone’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mr Sammy Adigun, said that the firm had deployed its technology which used cellular light cement with form works to mass produce houses globally and was training local artisans in its ongoing project in Badagry.
He said that the firm had already trained 67 artisans and would need to train 20,000 more to participate in the proposed 100,000 houses to be built.
“We have trained 67 and need to train more because with this technology, artisans must do the work with precision which local artisans are not used to,” he said.
Mr Femi Adewole the CEO, Family Homes Funds, called for the creation of a task force of all the stakeholders to fast track delivery of the 100,000 housing units to Nigerians.
He said that documented targets and objectives should be set up and dates for thier actualization be agreed upon.
“We want to sign up documents of achieving the goals,” he said.
Adewole said that key roles and responsibilities should be assigned and agreed upon.
Source: WorldStage
