National
Plan to develop multi-ownership housing: NRA
The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) proposes to promote a model of multi-ownership housing. This decision follows because of the slow progress of the reconstruction of private houses in Kathmandu Valley after Gorkha Earthquake.The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) proposes to promote a model of multi-ownership housing. This decision follows because of the slow progress of the reconstruction of private houses in Kathmandu Valley after Gorkha Earthquake.
A joint meeting of representatives from the NRA, Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC), Lalitpur Metropolitan City (LMC), Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD), and Department of Urban Development and Building Construction (DUDBC), decided adopt integrated dwellings under the house pooling concept.
NRA Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Yubaraj Bhusal says this plan will expedite construction of private houses in the valley.
The earthquake in April 2015 damaged over 100,000 houses. It’s nearly three years since the earthquake, but reconstruction of 80 per cent of houses has yet not begun. While 4,400 private houses have been built, nearly 15,000 houses damaged during the earthquake still under reconstruction.
“We have been long thinking about why there has been sluggish reconstruction of private houses inside the valley, where enough resources and manpower are available. After discussions with local representatives, we have decided to promote multi-storey houses under multi-ownership model,” says Bhusal.
On January 29, the NRA had held a meeting with the representatives of all 11 municipalities in Kathmandu district to find reasons for slow pace of construction of private houses.
During the discussion, representatives mentioned the reasons for the delay. They attributed residents’ unwillingness to construct their houses to various limitations like small piece of land owned by joint-families, narrow roads connecting houses, insufficient finance for reconstruction, and unavailability of bank loans.
“Considering these factors, we proposed joint-ownership model of housing where several members of the family will jointly own the house like brothers,” says Bhusal.
Under the new model of housing, family members shall share the reconstructed house like apartments. All of them will have joint ownership of the house.
“Families with small piece of land that could not begin their house construction due to limited area, can jointly built one house with their brothers and stay together sharing their storeys,” says Bhusal.
NRA has said residents can file application for house pooling at the local level.
After calculating share of property among themselves, residents can build one house for their families, and share among themselves as per the need.
The NRA has formed a five-member task force to study feasibility of the proposed model. The task force includes representatives from MoUD, DUDBC, KMC and LMC - led by the NRA joint-secretary Raju Manandhar. Former Director General of DUDBC, Surya Bhakta Sangakshe, will support the task force as technical advisor.
The task force has to submit the feasibility study report before February 19 on how the proposed plan can be executed.