Home Page

• Affordable Housing
• Local Suppliers
• Palestinian Loan Guarantee Scheme
• Galilee Loan Guarantee Programme (KIEDF)
• The Negev Loan Guarantee Project
• Grant Leveraging Facility
• Pensions
• Microfinance in the Palestinian Territory
• Palestine Securities Exchange
• Corporate Leadership Programme
• Entrepreneurs' Training
• Tsofen
• On the way to business in the Northern Galilee
• Economists' Training
• Gaza Early Recovery Private Sector Programme
• Exports
• Moon Valley Agricitural Exports
• Political Risk Insurance
  
• Israeli Palestinian Chamber of Commerce
  
• Future Projects
  

• Palestinian Economic Bulletin
• Economics in Peacemaking: Lessons from Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Economics in Peacemaking: Lessons from Northern Ireland
• Palestinian Private Sector Development Organisations
• Analysis

Links
Contact Us
Site Map

The Portland Trust is committed to promoting peace and stability between Palestinians and Israelis through economic development.

Affordable Housing Programme

The Portland Trust, working closely with the Palestinian private sector and the Palestinian Authority (PA), designed and initiated a $1bn initiative to build 15,000 affordable housing units in new communities across the West Bank by 2013. The
initiative will create thousands of new jobs, increase GDP by 1.5% per annum for five years and improve the lives of over 200,000 Palestinians. The units will be affordable to Palestinians on a monthly household income of $800 - $1,500 (approximately a third of all Palestinians).

In support of these efforts, The Portland Trust commissioned international architects – AECOM – to design a generic masterplan for a new Palestinian town that addresses some of the difficulties arising from the steep topography. Affordable Housing was presented as a key priority in the Palestinian Reform and Development Plan at the Paris Donor conference in December 2007. New affordable housing developments need international support to fund the internal and external infrastructure and public facilities. These costs are estimated at approximately 15% of the total. Grant funding is essential to reduce the financial risk to the banks involved and to keep the housing units affordable.

The first Affordable Housing projects (Al Reehan with 2,000 homes and Rawabi with 5,000 homes) were announced at the Palestine Investment Conference in Bethlehem in May 2008. The cornerstone of the Al Reehan neighbourhood, a Palestine Investment Fund backed development through Amaar Group, was laid on 29 June 2009 by President Mahmoud Abbas. The first phase of construction of 282 units began in 2010. The Rawabi developers, Bayti Real Estate Investment Company, appointed AECOM to lead the design phase. They secured approvals in the first half of 2009 for the 5,000 unit masterplan from the relevant Palestinian authorities for planning, construction and the provision of essential services to the site. Groundbreaking of Rawabi took place at the beginning of January 2010 and final approvals for the access road were secured in May 2010.

For more information on Rawabi, please click here.

Progress on other smaller projects has also been made, including the launch of another Amaar Group development, Al Jinan, a 1,000 unit neighbourhood outside Jenin. The Palestine Real Estate Investment Company (PRICO) and the Union Construction and Investment Corporation (UCI) have plans to develop affordable neighbourhoods in the Ramallah area. The developers Byder are seeking approvals for infrastructure and access from the Palestinian and Israeli authorities for 1,200 homes outside Nablus.

The Portland Trust has promoted the Affordable Housing Programme internationally and lobbied donors, including the EC, the World Bank and the governments of Italy, Sweden, France, UK, US and Canada, for infrastructure funding. Connections have been made between potential international investors and the Palestinian developers.

Research to support the development of the policy environment was commissioned by The Portland Trust and presented to the Palestinian Authority in 2009. This included analysis on the demand and affordability of new housing, a briefing note on the legal requirements for housing finance and a review of the mortgage situation.  The Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS) conducted the review which was published in Autumn 2009. It made a number of recommendations including legal and institutional reforms, measures to reduce construction costs for affordable units, raising awareness about mortgages and developing infrastructure.  To see the MAS study on Housing and Mortgage Loans, please click here.

The Portland Trust also funded local planning experts from An-Najah University to work with the Ministry of Housing to design a new system for assessing private sector housing initiatives and their publicly funded infrastructure requirements. The results of the work were formally presented to the Ministry of Housing in Spring 2010. It included a study on the current planning situation, a set of criteria to assess new projects, bidding forms for developers to complete, guidelines for staff with a clear process to follow and all the accompanying technical documents which the Ministry required to implement the new approach. Training was provided to staff in the Ministry on how to use the technical assessment mechanisms. The Ministry has subsequently integrated the material into its bidding process with developers. In addition The Portland Trust sponsored a leading Palestinian lawyer to consider the existing VAT and associated legal and regulatory restrictions for developers.