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City of Windhoek approves building plans worth N$174 million in June

City of Windhoek approves building plans worth N$174 million in June

The City of Windhoek approved a total of 270 building plans in June, 159 more than in May. In value terms, approvals increased by N$78.9 million to N$173.7 million, an 83.2% increase from May, a report by IJG Research shows.

A total of 289 completions to the value of N$192.1 million were recorded in June. Year-to-date 876 plans have been approved, 89 fewer than the 965 plans approved over the same period last year. The year-to-date value of approved building plans currently stands at N$825.2 million, which is 6.8% lower than during the first half of 2019.

For the month of June, 190 additions to properties were approved with a value of N$96.2 million, while 203 additions to properties worth N$95.7 million were completed during the month.

New residential units were the second largest contributor to the number of building plans approved with 76 approvals (N$72.3 million) registered in June, 48 more than in May. In the first half of 2020, 159 new residential units were approved worth N$243.3 million.

Furthermore, 4 new commercial units valued at N$5.3 million were approved in June, bringing the year-to-date number of commercial and industrial approvals to 28, worth a total of N$252.2 million.

IJG noted that the number of both building plan approvals and completions came in slightly above our expectations during the month and this is somewhat encouraging. However, this does not indicate that there will be a significant increase in construction activity in the coming months.

City of Windhoek’s data shows that the average waiting period from submission to approval was 118 days, meaning that most of the submissions were done before the lockdown period.

“It thus remains to be seen how many of these approvals will result in actual building activity as both businesses and consumers are still recovering from the impact of the lockdowns and are unlikely to still be in the financial position to go ahead with these building projects,” IJG noted.


 

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Donald Matthys

Donald Matthys has been part of the media fraternity since 2015. He has been working at the Namibia Economist for the past three years mainly covering business, tourism and agriculture. Donald occasionally refers to himself as a theatre maker and has staged two theatre plays so far. Follow him on twitter at @zuleitmatthys