The Windhoek Municipality has appealed to landlords and property developers to be humane when selling or letting residential properties, saying the escalation in the price of residential properties has become a headache for the council.
“I appeal to property owners and property developers to be humane enough and consider leniency when determining their property prices and rental fees,” the Windhoek Municipality spokesperson Joshua Amukugo said yesterday at a media briefing in the capital.
“Residents are indeed going through hardship due to property price escalations, and the [municipality] hereby extends its plea to profitable large private firms all over the country, and within the Windhoek municipal boundaries in particular, to consider becoming engaged in providing suitable accommodation to their employees as this could help alleviate the housing burden,” he urged.
Amukugo said the obvious solution to property and price escalations is to increase the supply of serviced erven, thereby increasing the availability of residential dwellings. However, currently due to limited funds newly serviced land is scarce, as well as because of the rapid growth of Windhoek’s population and the fact that most land around the city is owned by private commercial farmers. The municipality has to buy the land from the farmers at exorbitant prices.
“However the city council remains optimistic and in full support of the government’s mass housing project initiative which, upon completion of the construction of the houses by NHE in Otjomuise Extension 10, will provide the much needed breather to residents,” he said.
He said the situation was subject to the basic law of economics that determine that naturally with a limited supply of a certain commodity the demand for that particular commodity would always bound to increase and thus set prices to increase.
“Due to a lack of a legislative guideline in enforcing a healthy competitive framework on property prices the status quo will regrettably remain as such, with a few individuals benefiting from the opportunity and maximising on profit,” he said.
In solving the problem, Amukugo said the municipality has implemented a pilot phase strategy of a public private partnership (PPP) that so far is bearing fruit as a number of residential erven were availed and auctioned off in Otjomuise Extension 4.
“The project is ongoing, with residential erven to be availed this year for Academia Extension 1,” he said.
He further called on city residents not to despair as the municipality was confident that the employed strategic interventions such the PPP projects, and own-funded projects on serviced land together with the mass housing project would yield the much needed outcome and provide a cooling effect on property price escalation.
“I appeal to property owners and property developers to be humane enough and consider leniency when determining their property prices and rental fees,” the Windhoek Municipality spokesperson Joshua Amukugo said yesterday at a media briefing in the capital.
“Residents are indeed going through hardship due to property price escalations, and the [municipality] hereby extends its plea to profitable large private firms all over the country, and within the Windhoek municipal boundaries in particular, to consider becoming engaged in providing suitable accommodation to their employees as this could help alleviate the housing burden,” he urged.
Amukugo said the obvious solution to property and price escalations is to increase the supply of serviced erven, thereby increasing the availability of residential dwellings. However, currently due to limited funds newly serviced land is scarce, as well as because of the rapid growth of Windhoek’s population and the fact that most land around the city is owned by private commercial farmers. The municipality has to buy the land from the farmers at exorbitant prices.
“However the city council remains optimistic and in full support of the government’s mass housing project initiative which, upon completion of the construction of the houses by NHE in Otjomuise Extension 10, will provide the much needed breather to residents,” he said.
He said the situation was subject to the basic law of economics that determine that naturally with a limited supply of a certain commodity the demand for that particular commodity would always bound to increase and thus set prices to increase.
“Due to a lack of a legislative guideline in enforcing a healthy competitive framework on property prices the status quo will regrettably remain as such, with a few individuals benefiting from the opportunity and maximising on profit,” he said.
In solving the problem, Amukugo said the municipality has implemented a pilot phase strategy of a public private partnership (PPP) that so far is bearing fruit as a number of residential erven were availed and auctioned off in Otjomuise Extension 4.
“The project is ongoing, with residential erven to be availed this year for Academia Extension 1,” he said.
He further called on city residents not to despair as the municipality was confident that the employed strategic interventions such the PPP projects, and own-funded projects on serviced land together with the mass housing project would yield the much needed outcome and provide a cooling effect on property price escalation.
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