The Housing Authority has launched an extensive development programme of apartments and maisonettes - for a total value of over Lm10 million - to be eventually made available through the system of shared ownership or rented to applicants who are eligible for social housing.
The building programme includes urban regeneration projects in Cospicua, Floriana and Valletta as well as the construction of new apartment blocks in various localities like Pembroke, Mriehel, Mtarfa, Qawra, Kalkara, Mgarr, Naxxar and others.
In all, the Housing Authority will provide 419 new units - 359 flats and 60 maisonettes - and around 500 garages. Around half of these units are expected to be completed by next year, while the whole programme will be completed by the beginning of 2009.
The new buildings will incorporate various initiatives forming part of the Housing Authority’s mission to strengthen the community and provide a better setting in which to raise children.
Of the new apartments 25 per cent will consist of two bedrooms and 12 per cent of one bedroom. With these percentages the newly adopted policy of the authority is being implemented with the aim of providing apartments of different sizes to meet the needs of its clients.
A project in Valletta and another one in Floriana have been specifically designed to serve as ‘sheltered housing’. Twenty-one flats in Valletta and Floriana will be reserved for older people who are able to live independently within the community in an accommodation that is adapted to their needs.
After the first project of sheltered housing in Capuchins Street, Floriana, the authority is planning to develop a number of projects of this type in other localities.
To conserve and reduce energy consumption, the new flats and maisonettes will be equipped with double-glazing apertures, window and door louvers, roof insulation, wells and solar water heaters.
The authority said that the majority of its newly built units are accessible to the disabled.
“With the exception of maisonettes, all newly built apartment blocks will be equipped with lifts that are accessible for people who use a wheelchair.
Every project includes a number of garages, so that the authority can give the opportunity to all its beneficiaries to buy a garage, which is situated in the same block in which they would have been allocated an apartment, if they wish so.”
The urban regeneration projects currently under construction in Cospicua and Floriana together comprise 86 flats and 67 garages and are expected to cost over Lm2 million alone. The average cost of each apartment increases by around 50 per cent with these types of projects when the purchase cost of the existing property is taken into account.
Authority chairman Marisa Micallef said: “This is easily one of the busiest periods we have faced in the last seven years, both for the variety and the quantity of developments under way. It is also significant that as from 2007, when EU structural funds will for the first time be available for housing, we are also hoping to tap into these funds, particularly for our urban renewal programmes which deserve to become our main focus of activity in the coming years.”