Duran Farm prioritised

By MAJELEEN YANEI
THE National Housing Corporation’s (NHC) new acting managing director Dr Abel Tol says he will focus on the Duran Farm housing project for public servants over the next three months.
“There are 2,500 houses to deliver and my immediate concern will be on the first stage of the project which is to deliver 500 houses,” Tol said.
He said this during his announcement as the new acting managing director in Port Moresby yesterday.
In terms of current assets under the NHC, Tol said new tenancy agreements with strict terms and conditions would apply to all commission properties including flats, apartment blocks and standalone properties.
“First preference will be given to current tenants on standalone properties following the normal process but if they fail to pay then other public servants and citizens will be considered,” Tol said.
“Renovations for all our existing flats have started with those at Manu Auto port, and will continue to Gerehu, Tokarara and others to increase rentals.”
With regard to the Duran project, Tol said NHC was trying to accommodate 38 departments who had asked for 100 allotments each for their staff.
“We plan to have between three to five houses for any department that comes with an upfront of K80,000 for each allotment, contract will be given to anyone with an initial deposit.
“We have registered all the titles and we are working closely with our six developers, telling them to move on site and start,” he said. Abel said the 500 allotments had been pre-allocated to the developers to build houses starting at stage one of Duran Farm.
“The developers should start construction as soon as the titles are released to them and if they fail, contracts will be terminated and awarded to other developers,” he said.
Abel added that a K4 million contract for the main sewage pipeline which is 2.5-kilometres in length from the main sewage pond to the project site would be signed on Saturday and construction on it would start next month. Water was brought in but the water pipe’s connection will be done by end of this month, developers will start putting housing samples soon.
More than 300 titles were given to the local contractor, 88 titles to Rhodes, and 88 titles to China Steel. Almost 1,000 titles were registered with the Lands Department,” he said.
The developers are China Steel, Rhodes Ltd, Pacific Energy Consulting, PNG Resource Corporation/Kwik Built PNG, Zenith Limited and Northbuild Construction.