Land scarcity in Sittwe poses challenge to building civil servant housing

21 May 2021

DMG Newsroom
21 May 2021, Sittwe

Public housing projects are being developed for civil servants in some Arakan State townships, but in Sittwe it is difficult to build such housing due to land shortages, according to the Department of Urban and Housing Development.

“For the governmental staff in Sittwe Township, we are not able to do as much as we would like because of the lack of land to build public housing projects. With access to basic infrastructure and easy access to land, it will be possible to build adequate staff housing for governmental staff in Sittwe,” said U Aung Tun Naing, director of the Department of Urban and Housing Development.

According to the Department of Urban and Housing Development, at least 10 staff housing units of about 160 units a year are being built in townships in Arakan State.

A 40-by-60-feet plot of land in Sittwe’s Mingan Ward costs over K30 million, while a similar plot of land in downtown Sittwe is over K200 million. U San Shar Aung, a member of the Arakan State Real Estate Development Association, said that if the Arakan State Administration Council carefully handles the real estate price problem, land prices could fall.

“If the government reclaims land plots to build real estate and sell it at the lowest possible prices, real estate prices will fall automatically,” he said.

A land project was set up by the former Arakan State government and a Korean company, BXT International, at Mizan Ward on the bank of the Kaladan River in Sittwe, but critics say ordinary people cannot afford to buy the land.