A new deal has been sealed between Parand and Hashtgerd New Township Company and the State Welfare Organization to sell 1,000 subsidized Mehr units to people under the SWO umbrella, Bourse Press reported Ali Akbar Taheri, the company’s CEO as saying.
“There are about 7000 Mehr Housing units in Parand. The price of these units vary and those interested should pay 50% of the price at the time they register. Some 300 million rials ($ 9,908) in loan is provided for each unit,” Taheri said, adding that most of the units have not had buyers so far.
Ghasem Abdollahzade, SWO deputy chief said the organization tries to help the people under its protection register in Parand and Hashtgerd’s Mehr Housing (in proximity to Tehran.)
“We provide 80 million rials ($ 2,642) ex gratia to needy families with one disabled child. For households with two disabled children 300 million rials will be paid by SWO and other parties.” He did not identify the other parties.
All those under the SWO umbrella who have so far not benefited from state-subsidized lands or facilities can refer to Parand and Hashtgerd company’s offices in person and register for the scheme.
The Ministry of Roads and Urban Development had earlier said it is trying to sell an estimated 118,000 apartments built under auspices of the low-cost Mehr Housing Project that have failed to attract buyers.
Unfinished Work
Meanwhile, Ahmad Asghari Mehrabadi, deputy minister of roads and urban development said earlier in the week that 92% of the Mehr Housing Project units had been completed by the end of the last fiscal year (March 19).
“The figure was 86% in March 2015. Now the number of housing units completed is about 1.875 million,” he was quoted as saying by the road ministry’s website.
The officials went on to say that another 300,000 units will have been completed by the end of the Iranian fiscal year (March 2017) and completion of “only a few” of the Mehr Housing units will be postponed to a later date.
“The completion of 4%-5% of Mehr Housing units will be left for the next calendar year. Financial problems and delays in starting other projects like the Pardis New Town are the reasons behind the inability to complete the remaining units” before the year is out.
Asghari Mehrabadi said that banks now are unwilling to give loans for the Mehr Housing units as a result of which their construction work have not started. If the banks continue to not lend to building the houses for the low-income strata “they should be taken out of the Mehr scheme and built as part of another plan,” he said without elaboration.
