Another housing scheme was announced by the government at a special event at the presidential palace on Tuesday. The scheme envisages the construction of 500 housing units on state land in the Nicosia, Limassol, Paphos and Larnaca districts, at an estimated cost of €70m. The state land was valued in excess of €7m according to President Nikos Christodoulides, who presented the scheme. He said the plots would be put up for competitive tenders, for construction under the ‘design and build’ method.

The new housing units would remain in state ownership but would be rented out, at ‘affordable rents’, to young families and single people. The president boasted that his government did not approach housing as a cost, but as an investment in the future of the country, pointing out that so far more than €300m had been spent on housing policy, “a figure that is probably unique for Cyprus.” He also said that all the government’s housing schemes were “economically viable”, offering “hundreds of families and citizens, mainly of the new generation, the capability of finding a holistic solution to cover their housing needs.”

The housing schemes announced by the government are commendable but very little information has been given about the people who have been housed under these schemes (there have been seven so far), the prices they are paying and the cost to the taxpayer. There is a certain vagueness with very little information being given about the practical results of the schemes. Speaking at the same event on Tuesday, Interior Minister Constantinos Ioannou said the housing policy was based on two pylons – the construction of new housing units and the strengthening of the purchasing power of citizens, with an emphasis on young families.

Ioannou said the government was using the valuable asset of the state – the building coefficient – as an incentive to land developers to build more units, the extra number of units being made available at affordable purchase or rental prices. This has led to 260 units of affordable housing being made available by developers, out of 2,000 that have been built. Ioannou spoke about the other schemes. For instance, the scheme offering financial assistance between €20,000 and €50,000 to young families under 41 years of age was oversubscribed – over 1,000 applied and 295 were approved – but no other information is available.

It would be very useful if more specific information was provided about the schemes. What age groups were applying for them, when would housing units be ready for people to move into, the location of units offered at affordable rent by developers, what is considered affordable rent, the sale price of affordable housing, the number of people who have benefited in total. The government needs to provide this information because without it there is no way of anybody measuring the success or effectiveness of these housing schemes.