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.
To support our efforts we commissioned an international firm of architects - AECOM - to develop a generic masterplan for a new Palestinian town.
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 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. We have analysed the demand, the wider economic benefits and affordability of new housing projects, and shared our results with the Palestinian Authority. We funded local planning experts to work with the Ministry of Housing and designed a new system for assessing private sector housing initiatives and their publicly funded infrastructure requirements. Additionally, we sponsored a leading Palestinian lawyer to consider the existing VAT and associated legal and regulatory restrictions for developers.
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 Rawabi developers, Bayti Real Estate Investment Company, appointed AECOM to lead the design phase. They secured approvals for the 5,000 unit masterplan from the relevant Palestinian authorities in 2009. Groundbreaking of Rawabi took place at the beginning of January 2010.
For more information see: http://www.rawabi.ps/
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 co-financed a demand survey for the Nablus project in 2009.
