The Addis Ababa City Administration unveiled the cost revision of middle-class public houses just two days before it announced the raffle winners of 972 residences, raising the cost of all types of apartments by 56pc to 4,918 Br a square metre.
The winners of the raffle were announced on July 8, 2017, at the premises of the Addis Ababa City Administration Council. The winners were drawn from 11,088 registered citizens who have already paid their due payment in full after saving for more than 18 months.
The move came a week after the Addis Ababa Saving & Housing Development Enterprise (AASHDE) handed over 972 houses to the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE), the bank that is collecting the savings for housing projects.
The current market prices of infrastructure, labour costs and change of building design were taken into consideration during the revision of the cost.
When the middle-class public housing project began in 2013, AASHDE set the size of the houses to 55, 75 and 100sqm with a price tag of 2,289 Br, 3,300 Br and 3,860 Br a square metre for one, two and three bedrooms, respectively.
The revision, however, altered the sizes of the public houses to 124.97sqm, 149.5sqm and 168.68sqm, for two, three and four bedrooms respectively, omitting the previously planned one-bedroom unit houses. These houses cost 614,602 Br, 735,241 Br and 829,568 Br correspondingly, according to the new cost scheme.
However, the four-bedroom houses will be out of the raffling process.
The people who participate in the draw for three-bedroom houses with better financial capacity can take the houses, or else the government will pay the necessary cost and retain them, according to Yidnekachew Walelign, head of the Addis Ababa Housing Development Administration Bureau (AASDAB).
For each type of house, 20 people will be listed as reserves to replace the winners who are not able to pay the required payment for different reasons.
The Addis Ababa City Administration has subsidised over 725 million Br to complete the construction of the houses based on the difference exhibited following the revision in design and costs, according to Abate Sitotaw, deputy mayor of the city.
Four months ago, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn inaugurated 1,292 residential units under the middle-income housing scheme. The public houses are constructed in 19 buildings, out of which five are located in Senga Tera and the remaining 14 are located in Crown site, Aqaqi Qality District.
The public houses have all the necessary facilities and infrastructure like roads, sewerage systems, water and electricity, according to Hailu Kenea, head of AASHDE.
To ensure equitable wealth distribution among citizens, the drawing takes 20pc of the beneficiaries from public servants, three percent from the Diaspora community, and the remaining 77pc consists of all registered people.
From the total transferred public houses, 320 will be used for commercial purposes, which will be transferred to interested individuals through a tender process at an initial cost of 17,000 Br a square metre.
“But this cost is subject to adjustment when the actual bidding process begins,” Yidnekachew said.
The second and third phase of the middle-class public housing projects involves the construction of 20,000 and 17,000 housing units, respectively. The phases have reached 68pc and 36pc completion, respectively.
The second phase projects are located in Asko, Bole Tourist, Bole Meri Loqe and Bole Ayat sites, whereas the third phase projects are in Bole Bulbula II, Bole Beshale, and Bole Ayat II.
Registration for the middle-class public housing scheme started on August 12, 2013. Since then, close to 165,000 citizens have registered, and currently, there are more than 140,000 people regularly saving and waiting for the next raffle to come.
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