Steps to tackle affordable housing and town planning

Interior minister Constantinos Petrides on Wednesday outlined the steps the government is taking to address the major challenges facing land development.

He addressed the need for affordable housing, saying the government has announced incentives to mobilise investment in the housing market.

The review of the local development plans of Nicosia, Limassol, Larnaca and Paphos has begun in an effort to correct mistaken policies of the past and implement a modern strategic development plan based on the real economic, housing, development and social needs of Cyprus’ present and future needs, Petrides said.

“My own idea is that major changes need to be made, with increasing building coefficients in city centres, taking into consideration more objective factors and less discretion in development, setting new uses, and a real integration of the concept of sustainable mobility,” he added. He was speaking at the thirteenth earth development conference at the Hilton Park hotel in Nicosia.

The minister also referred to the unblocking of the immovable property of co-owners, so that a forced separation can be more easily achieved. He said the ministry is promoting legislation whereby any of the co-owners can apply for a division of a piece of land with their signature.

Petrides praised the land registry’s electronic platform, calling it a pioneering European data system which has already facilitated the life of many people who have dealings with the land registry.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.