The Lagos State Government has said the state will need 187,500 new houses to be built annually over the next five years to reduce the housing deficit in the state.
The commissioner for Housing, Prince Gbolahan Lawal stated that the final report of the Housing Needs Assessment Survey prepared by TNS RMS Nigeria Limited for the Lagos State Ministry of Housing, revealed that the total housing deficit in the state is about 2.55 million.
“At least, 187,500 new homes are required over the next five years to reduce the deficit,” he said. He said that apart from high population density; high cost of building materials, non-deployment of new technology, proliferation of slums, amongst others, were the major problems confronting mass housing delivery in Lagos.
“Others are lack of access to finance, shortage of skilled labour and artisans and problems caused by unscrupulous estate agents, landlords, developers and omo oniles. In order to reduce the huge deficit, the current policy is to continue to undertake construction of mass housing directly and through the Public Private Partnership programme,” he said.
According to him, the state government has introduced a policy known as rent-to-own designed to make housing more accessible and affordable particularly to low and medium income earners in both the formal and informal sectors.
He said under the arrangement, individuals would be required to pay just five per cent of the value of housing unit as commitment fee and payment is spread over 10 years at 6 per cent interest rate.
He also added that the state government would soon embark on massive construction of 50 Housing Units in each of the 20 Local Government Areas and 37 Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) in the state in a bid to tackle the housing deficit.
