“The Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs has allocated 130 plots for the General Housing Authority,” said Prince Mansour, adding that the task of making land cheaper needs the efforts of many government departments.
The prince said the housing authority, which has many plots of land left over from older allocations, will strive to provide houses to as many citizens as possible in all provinces. He added that a few housing projects were implemented in an unscientific manner and had to be redesigned.
In another development, the Jeddah municipality is planning to go ahead with a project to level hilly areas to the east of the city as part of efforts to find more land to solve the city’s housing problem. The municipality has also invited suggestions from the public on how best the scheme can be implemented.
The municipality has also decided to prepare a digital database for all land title deeds. The municipality has not been in a position to grant land since 1997 because of its unavailability, while the number of applicants has peaked over 100,000.
Adnan Al-Turkistani, a member of the Engineers Committee at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, welcomed the idea of extending the city to the east.
“The mountain range in the east is about 30 km in length and lies parallel to the city. Even if 10 km of the mountainous area are developed, then this would provide plenty of land to solve the housing problem,” he said.
