Lagos government is working to add some 3004 units to the available housing stock in the state before the end of 2020, with the completion and delivery of additional seven housing schemes, the governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu has disclosed.
Sanwo-Olu spoke in Lagos on Monday, at an event to mark this year’s World Habitat Day, with the theme “housing for all; a better urban future.”
According to the governor, represented at the event by his deputy, Obafemi Hamzat, his administration is committed to making befitting accommodation available to Lagosians through pragmatic models that will incorporate private sector partnership, encourage local contents and cut costs while also creating employment.
“The thrust of this year’s celebration is a major policy objective of the fourth pillar of our administration’s T.H.E.M.E.S agenda: Making Lagos a 21st-century economy. The current and projected future population of our state presents huge opportunities for investors in the housing sector and a compelling need for urban renewal.”
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Speaking further, he said: “Our pact with Lagosians as contained in our T.H.E.M.E.S agenda under the fourth pillar is to ensure a significant reduction in the housing deficit through the provision of affordable and decent housing and to deepen our commitment to a greater Lagos by advancing our strides towards an enduring urban future, founded on good spatial and sectoral planning.”
To accelerate the realisation of this objective, he stated that his administration had returned the state to the National Housing Fund and appointed the Lagos Building Investment Company (LBIC) Plc as the sole mortgage provider to facilitate a reduction in the housing deficit in Lagos State.
“We have also taken concrete steps to increase the housing stock in the state through combined efforts of the ministry of housing, the Lagos State Property Development Corporation (LSDPC) and Lagos Building Investment Company in delivering affordable housing units to the teeming population,” he said.
The governor declared that the total housing stock in the state would, by the end of this year, have increased by 3004 units with the completion and delivery of additional seven housing schemes, comprising 2,268 units as the government had completed and commissioned within the last 16 months, a number of housing schemes including Lateef Kayode Housing Estate, Igando, Courtland Villas, Lekki and Lekki Apartments, Ikate Elegushi.
He added that the state was committed to the full implementation of the rent-to-own policy, aimed at achieving the objective of making housing affordable and accessible to low-income Lagosians, under which 1303 Lagosians had become homeowners in Oba Adeboruwa, Lateef Jakande and Epe Housing Schemes.
“The government is equally aware of the debilitating impact of urban squalor on the socio-economic development of the State, and has thus strengthened the Lagos State Urban Renewal Authority (LASURA) as the relevant government agency to initiate and implement fresh ideas for eradicating slums in the Lagos megacity”
