Tuesday 24 / December / 2024
Muscat: The Minister of Housing and Urban Planning was hosted by the Shura Council on Sunday to discuss the ministry’s statement, which includes several axes.
"The Shura Council hosts His Excellency Dr Khalfan bin Said Al Shuaili, Minister of Housing and Urban Planning, in its 15th regular session of the third annual session of the ninth period, to discuss the ministry’s statement, which includes several axes, including: general policies for housing and urban planning, a study of the reality of land reconstruction, and partnership with the private sector," Oman News Agency (ONA) said in a statement.
His Excellency indicates that the ministry has completed the preparation of drafts of the "real estate development" law, the "unified addressing system" and "expropriation for the public benefit", and work is underway to prepare a draft for the amendment of the real estate registry system, the housing law and the urban planning law.
"The ministry is proceeding to complete the distribution of the lands needed to cover 23,000 applications in accordance with the lofty orders of His Majesty Sultan Haitham Bin Tarik and the declared standards, and is working to intensify efforts to make these lands within schemes that provide basic services as much as possible," the Minister said.
His Excellency confirmed that the ministry has made great strides in achieving digital readiness by launching a number of digital platforms that had a noticeable positive impact on governance, transparency and oversight, and the speed of completion of transactions.
The Minister of Housing and Urban Planning said: "The distribution of residential lands according to an approved methodology that takes into account the gradation in the specified number of distribution to ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of the 'Choose Your Land' platform after linking with the relevant government agencies, and within this framework, the distribution of nearly 8,000 residential plots has been completed until mid-June .
"We are studying about 35,000 applications to prove and registering property and deciding on them from 2020 until April 2022, and the target is more than 27,000 applications in the next stage," Housing Minister added.
His Excellency indicated that the expansion of the projects of the National Initiative for Integrated Residential Neighborhoods "Sorouh" by offering three new sites for more than 4,000 housing units. There is an initiative to offer 10 sites distributed over the governorates during this year.
Dr Al Shuaili said that the Ministry is in the process of establishing several smart cities (model cities) along the lines of the Smart City project in the Wilayat of Seeb, which is a model scheme for a new residential city with standards specific to its modern concept.
His Excellency said: "The Ministry is working on offering another group of lands under the usufruct right system, with 430 lands with usufruct rights and fees specified for each purpose, and 200 lands with the usufruct system by bidding, distributed over all the governorates of the Sultanate of Oman."
Housing Minister clarified that the Ministry is seeking, with the concerned authorities, to transfer the housing loan programme to the Oman Housing Bank to facilitate the process of deciding on applications, and to ensure that applications retain the right of seniority and registration controls.
"The Ministry assigns the work of preparing the structural plan for the Muscat Governorate to one of the experts. Work is underway to prepare the structural plans for the Wilayat of Salalah, and to implement the structural plan for the Wilayat of Sohar, according to the urban strategy outputs of the regional plan for the governorates of Dhofar and North Al Batinah," the Minister added.
