The Lagos State Government on Tuesday debunked the allegation of illegality and impunity made against it by residents of Omole Phase 2 area of the state over the construction of some blocks of flats at the Estate.
The government said denied going wrong by constructing the flats which, it said, was part of the Lagos Home Ownership Mortgage Scheme (Lagos HOMS).
A Lagos-based television station had on Monday, 4th August 2014, featured a protest by some residents of the estate who accused the government of breaking its own laws and manifesting impunity by erecting the blocks of flats, adding that the government had earlier been written on the matter but refused to respond.
But briefing newsmen at the Bagauda Kaltho Press Centre at the Lagos State Secretariat, Alausa, Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Town Planner Toyin Ayinde, explained that there was nothing wrong in the government action which, according to him, was an initiative to increase housing stock for the benefit of the entire public and citizenry of Lagos State.
The commissioner, who was accompanied to the briefing centre by his counterpart in the Information and Strategy Ministry, Mr. Lateef Ibirogba, among other members of the State Executive Council, said government “has operated within the provisions of the Physical Planning, Urban Development, Urban Regeneration and Building Control Law 2010 which allows for the governor to give assent to Special Building Projects.”
He said with regard of that provision, the State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, issued an executive order to empower such projects to be located in agreement with the authority vested in him as governor and that “any Lagos HOMS project within an existing Government Scheme/Built-up area is Special Building Project under the Lagos State Urban and Regional Planning Law 2010.”
According to the commissioner, the governor’s executive order also empowers all concerned agencies of the state government to give priority to all matters relating to Lagos HOMS project, reiterating that the project is a housing initiative of the government meant to address and solve the state’s housing problem.
Noting that the State is constrained of land with just 3,577 square kilometres against a population of over 22 million people, the commissioner explained that the population cannot be accommodated in low density development.
“It is not sustainable,” Ayinde said.
He said in order to adequately address the problem, government must begin to shift from the policy of low density development to increased density as done in all other places in the world “if we must accommodate the people and their activities.”
He added that the Ikoyi and Lekki axis have been experiencing increased density over the last few years.
Ayinde, who appealed to citizens to be tolerant in the process of change, expressed the commitment of government to increasing the housing stock in the State and the determination to continue to seize every opportunity to do so pointing out that the plots upon which the HOMS are erected are abandoned parcels of land taken over “for overriding public purposes.”
He noted that an inventory of lands and properties is still in progress throughout the state to see how much more advantage the government can take in public interest.
Ayinde denied the allegation that government did not respond when the residents wrote adding that both the Commissioner for Housing and the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry had attended to the Estate Residents’ Executive and visited the Lagos HOMS project with them.
“He had assured them that, like many other HOMS projects, it will be perfectly finished and be environmentally friendly,” TPL Ayinde said and that the Housing Commissioner also assured them that the State government was committed to the security of every citizen of the State.
The commissioner, who added that he had also attended the meeting of residents of Omole Phase 1, assured that if he is invited by the Residents Association of Phase 2, he would attend to them and that as a public servant he is ready at all times to attend to the needs of the public who employed him.
“The HOMS is structured in such a way that the children of the rich will interact and grow with the children of the poor so that we don’t build a class society,” Ayinde said.
“Let us not forget that some of us were born in Mushin and some in Bariga, but we have been privileged to live in Omole. We should not even forget that some of us have to travel very far to get to our State capitals and take okada to get to our villages. So in all of these, we must be tolerant of one another.
