Distressed Buildings: Lagos To Relocate Occupants Of 900 Housing Units

To avert imminent disaster, Lagos State government has concluded plans to relocate residents of the 900 Housing Units at Adeniji Adele.
It said the estate was under the waters.

The special adviser to the governor on e-GIS and urban development, Dr.Olajide Babatunde, who dsiclosed this yesterday at the ongoing ministerial briefing in Lagos, said the occupants of the housing units would be relocated in batches.

He said the state had started the relocation by providing accommodation for some of the occupants of the estate whose building had collapsed.

He said the present administration cannot complete the relocation exercise in its tenure because of the financial burden.

“Adeniji Adele housing unit is under water, what we are doing is first build the building we are going to put the residents into, we have got a land close to the estate in the same Adeniji Adele, we have a free land just by it in Adeniji Adele. we will develop that land for about 98 people, take the 98 people and put them in the new houses, then where those 98 People were taken away from, we will demolish the house, raise it to the level of the other one, build new housing units for another set of people, then we will bring another set of people into that one until we finish it.

“There are about 900 units of houses, we may not be able to finish it under this administration because we have the plan in place to start with 98,we try as much as we can. We expect that the succeeding administration will follow suit until they finish it.

“What we will end up with is the size of the land we have contributed at the beginning is what the Lagos State government will end up with.

“Some houses in Adeniji Adele have sank. The occupants are being resettled and the government is paying their rent as we speak,” he said.

Babatunde said the state government is planning to rebuild Obalende and the state government has a court ruling which backs its action.

He said the state is holding meetings with the residents of the area to meet up with the specification of buildings required for the area.

He said the state government was working hard on her plan to relocate the Computer Village in Ikeja to Kantangwa, while the plan to relocate the OkoBaba Sawmill in Oyingbo to Agbowa is continuing.

According to him, the state government has built two- bedroom housing units for those that will occupy the sawmill.

Babatunde also charged building owners in the state to take advantage of the 90-day amnesty programme initiated by the state government to get their building plans approved, stressing that the approval was being done with rebate granted by the state government.