CDA fails to develop Park Enclave

[Salman]

CDA fails to develop Park Enclave

ISLAMABAD, Sept 4: Park Enclave, also called the Jewel of the City, has turned out to be a blot on Capital Development Authority’s (CDA) efforts for giving a better residential scheme for the elite.

Over 180 buyers out of 600 have defaulted after paying second installment to the civic agency.

The people have defaulted on what they owe the CDA Park Enclave because of non-development at the site of the project, Dawn has learnt reliably.

Park Enclave was launched in July 2011, during the tenure of former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.

Around 700 residential plots were put on sale by the CDA through balloting and only 600 were sold to potential buyers through a process of installments, said a senior ranking official of the authority, not willing to share his name.

“Plots measuring 500 square yards were sold to potential buyers who had paid Rs1.2 million as the first installment,” said the member.

The total cost of a 500 sq yd residential plot was Rs12 million which was to be paid by potential buyers in seven installments.
The second and third installments of the plots were around Rs1.8 million each.

The second installment was to be after a month’s time while the buyers were given four months for the third installment.

The senior ranking official said that the authority had successfully managed to generate around Rs720 million from the sale of 600 plots.

But soon after getting the first installment the authority decided to use 40 per cent of the total generated money from Park Enclave’s first installment for meeting its financial needs since it was facing severe financial crunch.

“The decision was taken after the approval of the board,” claimed the official.

The official said that soon after getting Rs720 million, the authority’s management desired to pay back huge bills of the contractors who were working on roads and other development schemes in the city.

“The authority has released a large chunk of money to these contractors and bypassed the ratio (40 per cent) as suggested by the board and used the Park Enclave funds to pay back the dues of contractors and other day-to-day expenses of the authority,” he maintained.

“It was also decided that 60 per cent of the total amount generated from the first installment of the Park Enclave will be used for the development of the elite residential housing scheme,” said another official associated with the project.

He informed that the rest of the 60 per cent amount is with the finance department of the CDA and is still to be spent.

The official said that CDA’s management has also miserably failed to start the development work at the site which led to trust deficit between CDA and the buyers of Park Enclave plots.

“People are not willing to pay their third installment since they have genuine concerns that investing in CDA schemes is now a risky business,” observed the official.

He said that it was sad to note that a private developer successfully managed a scheme some 8km away from Park Enclave site.

The private housing contractor has completed major development work like road network and basic town planning of streets and parks within a span of eight months.

“CDA’s finance division is now in trouble again, since they could not generate the third installment as the number of defaulters is going up with every passing day as it has crossed over to 180 out of 600 buyers,” he insisted.

An official associated with the accounts wing of the authority added: “The response to the third installment is very poor and CDA’s management is concerned over the delay in installments,” the official maintained.

The finance wing official maintained that CDA should have started the project development with full pace after getting such a large payment of over Rs7 billion but the authority’s management played dirty with the buyers.

One estate agent, Raja Murtaza Satti when asked to comment on Park Enclave, said: “A large number of buyers went for the Park Enclave property but since there is nothing on the ground people are no more interested in giving further installments to the CDA.”

Mr Satti added that the project was to be completed in 18 months time but despite passage of 13 months the authority could not kick start major development work at the site of the Park Enclave.

When the spokesman for CDA Masoodur Rehman was approached by Dawn, he claimed: “It’s baseless to say that there is no work at the site of Park Enclave.”

“The development work is in progress at the site and engineers are working on establishing the boundary wall of the Park Enclave, which will be a successful CDA project,” asserted the spokesman.

Mr Rehman remarked that he had no idea over the payment schedule of the Park Enclave.

“I don’t know how many people have defaulted from the Park Enclave’s routine installments since these installments were very easy to pay,” observed the spokesman.

The CDA spokesman added: “I will get back to you once I get all the information.”

Till filing of this story the spokesman could not send a version on the current development.