DHA Phase VIII development to be completed by 2011

Phase VIII of Defense Housing Authority (DHA) will take another three years to develop, Daily Times has learnt. 

"The improvement of roads, construction of new roads, new sewerage lines, water supply lines, water reservoirs and KESC lines are all in progress and we hope that the entire phase will be fully developed by 2011," informed the resident engineer (RE) for roads from consultants Osmani & Co. He said that they were working on DHA Phase-VIII only, as the development of this phase was not included in the DHA master plan. 

The construction of new roads was carried out at an estimated Rs 2.07 billion, while improvements cost Rs 97 million. The contractor for this project is the National Logistics Cell (NLC), and the contractors who are installing water supply lines and water reservoirs are J-China and the RMG Company.

These changes come after a long delay. A DHA official told Daily Times that DHA Karachi announced its plan to develop Phase VIII in the late 1980s. "Phase-VIII is mainly made up of reclaimed land and covers an area of over 4,000 acres, which is approximately 50 percent of the entire DHA Karachi," he said. 

According to him, Phase VIII has been called the single largest development being undertaken in Pakistan in terms of size and foreign investment. "DHA is currently in talks with several foreign builders to bring in their expertise and develop the lucrative coastline," said a DHA official.

"It was only in 1994 that the DHA began allotting plots to army officers and gave permission for the construction in its first three belts. The first plots were sold for just below Rs 600,000 in 1994," the official revealed. Furthermore, all residential and commercial plots in DHA Phase VIII are now owned by the private sector and permission for construction has only been granted for a portion of the phase. As a result of the property boom that began in 2001, property prices in Phase VIII have risen over 1,000 percent since 1994, said the resident engineer of Osmani & Co.

Moreover, major investment by foreign firms has contributed to Phase VIII; the building for the golf club was developed by Malaysian firm Sysmax, and the six-star residential project Creek Marina by Singaporean firm, Meinhardt. Furthermore, Emaar Pakistan, a subsidiary of Emaar UAE, launched the 100-acre project, Crescent Bay, with an investment of 2.4 billion US dollars within DHA Phase VIII and in close proximity to the DHA golf course.