MIDC out to break affordability jinx with low-cost housing

…sets to build 6,000 units with N3.5m entry point

Multi-purpose Infrastructure Development Company (MIDC), a real estate investment and development firm, says it is out to break the affordable jinx in the property market with an ambitious project it is perfecting plans to develop.
The company has entered into an agreement with the Lagos State government to build 6,000 housing units for the state government at various locations under the new Lagos Affordable Public  Housing (LAPH) initiative which targets 20,000 housing units through partnership with the private sector.
“We are now doing site preparations for the development of blocks of flats and bungalows comprising  2 and 3-bedroom flats with superior designs and very good locations in Ayobo, Imota in Ikorodu and Badagry. These are going to be very affordable houses with prices starting from N4.5—N10 million per unit”, Emmanuel Obire, MIDC’s CEO, informed in an interview.
MIDC  is one of the developers for the state government and in the LAPH initiative, it is the major owner of transaction but has brought other parties into it because it believes that, to do well in the building business, other people have to be taken along.
“So, we are part of the LAPH initiative and, for us, the only way out is collaboration”, he said, adding, “we are also local partners to the Eco-Stone—an affordable housing development foreign firm working for the federal government on its Family Integrated Staff Housing (FISH) programme;  these companies need local knowledge to operate and we are providing that for them”.
MIDC is not new to affordable housing development. It is the developer of the 1,000-unit Teju Royal Garden located off Lagos-Badagry Expressway which, according to the CEO, is about 95 percent subscribed with almost 100 buyers already living on the estate.
This is an estate where one-bedroom and two-bedroom bungalows sell for N2.5 million and N4.5 million per unit respectively. Obire explained that they are able to keep the cost of their houses low by making them functional and not necessarily big, adding that they have also been able to control other variables such as the cost of land acquisition and infrastructure provision.
“We have been involved in various housing delivery—high and low—and because of my background as a trained structural engineer, we have been able to put together bit and pieces of what it takes to deliver affordable homes. This begins with the design in which you must start with houses that are functional, but not too big in order to be able to bring down the cost”, he said.
Teju Royal Garden offers different house-types including 100 units of  one-bedroom bungalows; 200 units of two-bedroom bungalows and  450 units of detached and semi-detached three-bedroom bungalows giving a total of 750 housing units for the first phase of the project.
Work on the second phase of the project made up of 75 serviced plots and  250 housing units comprising two-bedroom flats , three- bedroom  flats and terrace houses has started with all the serviced plots sold out.
One of the major high points of this estate is the employment it has created for the locals. It has consistently employed about 300 workers  who are on average payment of  N500,000—N750,000. “This is a significant contribution to GDP.  So, if government makes a conscious effort to invest in housing and infrastructure, addressing unemployment will no longer  be an issue”, Obire assured.

 

CHUKA UROKO