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Development delay frustrates LDA Avenue 1 depositors

By Khawaja Naseer

LAHORE: Hundreds of the buyers of plots in the Lahore Development Authority’s Avenue 1 housing scheme have demanded the provincial government stop the Authority from revising fares for the plots.

The LDA announced the scheme in January 2003, asking for an initial deposit of Rs 216,000 for one-kanal plots and Rs 108,000 for 10-marla plots. The rest was to be paid in six instalments of Rs 54,000 (one-kanal plots) and Rs 27,000 (ten-marla plots) each up to October 30, 2004. The LDA received Rs 3.5 billion in deposits. However, towards the end of 2004, the LDA asked the 9,000 applicants for plots to deposit an extra six instalments.

Khawaja Muhammad Zakriya Butt, president of the LDA Avenue-1 Welfare Housing Society, says the LDA cannot increase the price of the plots because it did not tell buyers when they made initial deposits that it could revise prices.

Ikhlaq Ahmed Tarar, director general of the LDA, says prices had to be increased because of the rising development cost of the project near the EME society on Raiwind Road. The cost went up because of the delay in the start of development work.

Butt, who represents a group of around 500 depositors objecting to the price revision, says many of the depositors are pensioners who cannot afford to pay the extra six instalments.

“When the applicants deposited the amount they were not informed that it was a provisional price that could be revised,” he said. “The LDA advertisements assured the applicants that the development of the scheme would start in mid 2003 and it would be completed by March 2005, after which they would be given possession of the plots. Development work has still not started, meaning they have to pay extra because the cost of housing material and other expenditures have increased rapidly in the last two years.”

Butt said depositors were now being contacted by property dealers offering them twice the price. “These dealers get the phone numbers of applicants and offer them double their deposits. They know they will get their files and make a lot of profit from them. It’s a mafia,” he said.

He demanded the government stop the LDA from charging extra for plots, that development work start immediately, and plots be demarcated so depositors can be given possession of them.

Tarar, the LDA director general, said that the housing scheme was being modelled on the Defence Housing Authority. He said because of fears of a ‘land mafia’ getting involved, the LDA had not announced a transfer policy, meaning buying and selling plots at present is illegal.

Asked about the delay in development, he said a development contract had been awarded in mid-2004. He said the previous administration of the LDA had been unrealistic in promising that construction work would begin in mid-2003. The LDA spent the last year buying land from private parties and government departments.

Asked if depositors had been informed that prices could be revised, he said it was standard practice for government housing schemes to give an estimate of the cost based on the market price of the land. “We had to increase prices because of the rising development cost,” he said.

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