Accelerated Program for Development of Middle Income Housing and Infrastructure

By W.D. Ailapperuma

The Accelerated Program for the Development of Middle Income Housing and Infrastructure, as it is presently known, was conceived by the Prime Minister in his ‘Five-Point Plan for a New Country in Sixty Months’ introduced in the run-up to the general election 2016. 

He promised to launch a massive program to construct 500,000 housing apartments at a reasonable price for the middle class and the working class in the urban and suburban areas. Today, this commitment has been fashioned and developed in to a reality in the form of a vibrant public-private sector partnership effort under the directions of the Minister of Housing and Construction.

The Government programs for housing development over the last few decades have concentrated on the provision of housing to lower-income groups. These included mainly rural housing development and urban upgrading programs where targeted subsidies were often made available to the poor. The private sector was expected to cater for the increasing housing needs of the upper-income groups, especially in the urban areas. 

This strategy had left a vast numbers of middle and lower-middle income families homeless and stranded. They, by the very criteria of selection applied for subsidised housing, became ineligible for the Government sponsored programs whilst the upper-end housing by the private sector became unaffordable and far out of reach for them.

No serious attempt had been made to provide housing for this middle class since the early 1980s when the then Government embarked upon the development of large housing estates in the suburbs such Mattegoda, Raddoluwa, Ranpokunagama, Hantane, etc. The then Government was forced to ease out on these programs as well as even from the lower and middle income rental housing schemes like Maligawatta and Soysapura, mainly due to the high costs involved and the Government’s in affordability to continue with them.

However, this unfortunate outcome left the middle income groups, especially the monthly wage earners in the lurch and forced them to live far away from their work places, mostly in their own traditional villages, and commute long distances spending long hours. The Minister’s initiative for middle income housing therefore comes in as a timely intervention to overcome this lacuna in the country’s housing strategies.

The Middle Income Housing Development Program, as it is planned and implemented today, concentrates on the provision of housing, mainly in the form of apartments, in and around nodal points close to expressway exits and railway stations, facilitating speedy and easy access to urban work places. 

Further, they are to be made available at prices affordable to the vast numbers of middle-income wage earners, who can ill afford to procure high priced urban land or invest in the luxury apartments sprouting in the cities. The new program is also in the process of facilitating mortgage financing through banks, for the prospective purchasers of these housing units. 

However, the most significant factor in this program is that it is a totally private-sector driven initiatives. The investment, design, construction, marketing and sale of the housing will be undertaken solely by the private sector, with the Government playing an enabling role by providing or facilitating access to suitable land and by bringing the infrastructure facilities up to the selected housing sites. The Government, in addition, facilities the process by advising on designs, checking on structural requirements and expending the approval processes. A Project Facilitation Office, which will function as a one-stop facility for the developers, has already been established.

The new urban agenda of the Government the President and the Prime Minister has recognised that housing is both inseparable from the new process of urbanisation and is a socioeconomic development imperative. The Government therefore, is committed to the expansion of adequate and affordable housing as central to achieving inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable urbanisation. 

Housing, accordingly, has been elevated as one of the highest priorities of the Government’s development effort and the Accelerated Program for the Development of Middle Income Housing and Infrastructure, is undoubtedly one of the most important and integral components of this effort.

(The writer is the former Secretary to the Ministry of Urban Development, Housing and Construction and Senior Advisor to the Minister of Housing and Construction.)