When the moving construction machines of the Ogun State Property Investment Corporation (OPIC) arrived Isheri area of the state in August 2015, many did not believe in their ability to deliver what stand today as luxury homes, and also an urban community offering strong value propositions.
This was because, Isheri, a sleepy rural community, had huge environment challenges that devastated property values. The part of the community where MTR Gardens is sitting today was a waterlogged waste land that posed a security risk being a hideout for miscreants.
The terrain was difficult to access, leading to a tough and difficult development process that involved different stages of reclamation, flood channelization and raft foundation to ensure structural stability of the coming buildings.
Today, the Isheri story has changed and, according to Jide Odusolu, the OPIC managing director and special adviser to the Ogun State governor on property and investment, “what we are doing here, apart from creating homes, is also a form of economic expansion in which we are creating economic urban communities and resolving environment challenges”.
OPIC has been in existence for over 30 years, but in the last eight years, has been a veritable tool in the state government’s infrastructure development, economic expansion and internal revenue generation.
“Before this administration came on board, OPIC in over 30 years delivered a maximum of 200 housing units, all of them in Agbara. They also built about three kilometers of roads; but in the last eight years, OPIC has delivered about 2000 housing units and also done over 40 kilometres network of roads in our various estates”, Odusolu disclosed to journalists on tour of the facilities recently.
MTR Gardens, located on KM6 along Lagos-Ibadan Expressway Way, is the corporation’s latest housing development. It is a 180-unit premium apartment-styled community comprising 150 units of 3-bedroom apartments and 30 units of 2-bedroom apartments in 25 and 3 blocks respectively.
The estate which targets upper middle class buyers boasts dedicated power supply, paved roads/walkways, portable water, packaged sewage plant, and sit-out areas. The rooms are very specious for both the 3-bedroom and 2-bedroom, each with ensuite maid-room and three parking spaces for each apartment. Recreational facilities include multi-purpose gym, swimming pool, basketball court and a neighbourhood mall to answer to the domestic needs of residents.
Apartments in this Garden which offers both investment and residential opportunities attract competitive market prices. Buyers and investors have the option of buying fully completed apartments or shells in which case they have to do the finishing by themselves. But there is price differential.
Whereas a completed 3-bedroom apartment sells for N32 million, the shell variant goes for N24 million. As for 2-bedroom, a completed apartment sells for N18.5 million while the shell goes for N14 million.
Buyers also have the option of paying outright or going through mortgage facilities provided by Gateway Mortgage Bank, Homebase Mortgage Bank and Trustbond Mortgage Bank Plc at 18 percent interest rate repayable in 15 years .
The managing director informed that MTR Gardens, which is designed to have the same scale of what obtains in 1004 Estate in Lagos without the stress and pressure there, is the first of a three-phased development, disclosing that the second phase promises 600 apartments.
“The third phase of this project is going to be a commercial city with office building and shopping mall; the concept of what we are doing is to recreate this area in such a way that it is not just enough to live in Ogun, but to also work and thrive in the state. We want to make people start seeing this place as home where they can live, work and play”, he said.
Odusolu, whose eight-year stint in OPIC shall be elapsing in May this year, says it is gratifying for him to have been a part of the journey that made the transformation that Ogun has seen within this period.
CHUKA UROKO
