Renewed Hope Estates: APDC To Partner FG

By: Niyi Lawal

The Abuja Property Development Company (APDC) is to go into partnership with the Federal Ministry of Housing and Urban Development to build Renewed Hope Cities and Estates.

The Acting Managing-Director of APDC, Mr. Akeem Aderogba, made this disclosure during a courtesy visit to the Ministry.

The Managing-Director said that “the relationship between the APDC and the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Arc. Ahmed Musa Dangiwa, is more than a decade, and therefore, was enough to initiate a meaningful collaboration.

The Managing-Director said that the relationship between the APDC and the Minister started since he was the Managing-Director of Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FBMN) which was based on trust, experience, expertise and professionalism.

He, therefore, reiterated that the company’s intention for the visit was to expressed readiness for the partnership to complement Federal Government’s efforts to deliver on the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, on housing and urban development.

Aderogba, recalled that not long ago, the Ministry unveiled an historic New City Development Plan with the aim of decongesting city centers called Renewed Hope Cities and Estates Programme, which President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, launched with the groundbreaking of a 3,112-housing unit project at Karsana District, Abuja.

His words: “It is the intention of the APDC to explore areas of working together to collaborate and address the menace of social housing inequality by providing a broad range of affordable ownership options for residents of the Federal Capital Territory, because APDC have seen that these initiatives show that the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development is mindful of the need to facilitate the building of houses for Nigerians, especially those within the medium and low-income brackets, can afford.”

“So, for the mere fact that APDC remains in a tall position as the preferred developer and facility manager in Abuja and its environs, because of her status as development vehicle for the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), it is very imperative that we made this move,” Aderogba added.

Aderogba also used the opportunity to congratulate the Minister on his appointment to drive the President’s Reform Agenda to develop a robust framework for ensuring that housing agencies under the supervision of the Ministry are optimized to provide quality, decent, and affordable homes to all Nigerians at a greater scale.

Responding, the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Arch. Ahmed Musa Dangiwa, expressed confidence in the expertise, experience and ability of APDC, dated back to his time as Chief Executive Officer of FMBN and assured to do everything possible to make the partnership work.

Dangiwa, who welcomed the leadership of the Abuja Property Development Company to the Federal Ministry of Housing and Urban Development appreciated them with assurances that the ministry have taken note of APDC’s desire to collaborate with the Ministry as it strives to achieve her mandate of providing decent housing to Nigerians in the FCT.

Dangiwa said, “I want to assure you that, as a results-driven Ministry, we welcome strategic partnership, with strong collaboration.”

“It is my desire to do more by reforming all Federal Agencies under the Ministry, including the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria and the Federal Housing Authority. This reform process has already started with the inauguration of the Housing Institutions Reform Task Team under the Chairmanship of Mr. Adedeji Adesemoye, with representatives from other stakeholders, early this year, because Mr. President, as part of the Reform Agenda, recently approved the appointment of competent Renewed Hope Management Teams for these agencies, and I am confident that they will drive the Reform Agenda forward. So, I would like to encourage APDC Management to engage with the new leadership teams towards deepening the existing scope and scale of collaborations,” he said.

“Under phase one of our Renewed Hope Cities and Estates Programme, we plan to deliver a total of 50,000 housing units across Nigeria. The Cities will feature 1,000 housing units per site in one location in each of the six geo-political zones of the country and the FCT, while the Estates will have 500 housing units per site in the remaining thirty (30) States. In Abuja alone, we are working to deliver about 20,000 housing units through PPP and we have designed the Renewed Hope Cities as integrated living communities targeting all income brackets,” the Minister reiterated.

According to him, “they comprise one-bedroom blocks of flats, two-bedroom blocks of flats, and three-bedroom blocks of flats; two-, three-, and four-bedroom terraces; four-bedroomdon duplexes; and five-bedroom duplexes.”