EXCLUSIVE: Kuwait to tender residential complex infrastructure package

15 February 2018
Public Authority for Housing Welfare has a backlog of 100,000 applicants, with an average waiting time of seven to 18 years

Kuwait’s Public Authority for Housing Welfare (PAHW) expects to tender by the end of March the first infrastructure package for a KD600m ($1.9bn) residential project, to be located in an area called N5, according to a source with knowledge of the scheme.

The project is considered low-cost housing since the average plot size is about 200 square metres, smaller than the average plot size in most of the housing complexes currently being planned across the country.

The project is expected to have 9,600 housing units once completed.

Kuwait has multiple housing complexes planned including the $10-15bn South Saad Al-Abdullah New Town, the $3.6bn South al-Mutlaa City and the South Sabah al-Ahmed City.

In addition to decongesting the capital Kuwait City, the new residential projects are helping correct real-estate prices in the capital, which is understood to have skyrocketed in recent years.

“We’ve seen a 30 per cent decrease in average real-estate prices since the government started these housing projects,” the source told MEED.

PAHW has been seeking to involve the private sector as it works to provide affordable housing for Kuwaiti families and reduce upfront costs. The authority has a backlog of over 100,000 applicants, with an average waiting time of seven to 18 years.

In December 2016, Kuwait Municipality appointed a consortium comprising Dar al-Handasah and Perkins+Will, which are both part of Lebanon’s Dar Group, to draw up Kuwait’s 2040 masterplan.

The municipality is understood to have set up a development plan, in cooperation with the Kuwait Direct Investment Promotion Authority (KDIPA), for identifying key areas in the country where foreign firms will be allowed to operate with no local agents, and permitted to own these areas with tax and customs exemptions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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