| By Justin Emedot,
:: 31-01-2012
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UCU Holdings, the Uganda Christian University endowment, has postponed the launching of phase 1 construction of University Hills at Ntawo Project (UHNP), its planned satellite city, to the middle of the year.
“It has been delayed and will probably begin around mid this year. We needed a lot of approvals before beginning, which included the finances. Once we get them in place, then the project will take off,” Prof Stephen Noll, the managing director and former vice chancellor, told The Standard last Wednesday.
He explained that another reason for the delay in launching the first phase is “the overall economic condition in Uganda, which makes it hard for people to afford houses with the current inflation.”
Prof Noll who was addressing a visiting team from Oikocredit, a multinational company that lends money to institutions, and was responsible for partly funding the construction of the Hamu Mukasa Library.
He elaborated that since preliminaries like surveying the area were already done, UCU Holdings was prospecting for funds and Oikocredit was a likely source.
Under phase one of the project, about 858 houses are expected to be complete within seven years.
Physical planning of the area was done last year by Perkins and Wills, an American design firm. Though it is not the conclusive plan, it involved putting the plots together, engaging the local community, the municipality and the central government.
UHNP, an estate which sits on a square mile of land and is in three phases, will have over 3,000 units as well as schools, a church, a commercial centre and a state-of-the-art sports facility.
According to a market survey carried out by UCU Holdings, Entebbe is the most popular town for accommodation around Kampala, followed by Mukono.
But the survey shows Mukono could soon overtake Entebbe after the expansion of the Kampala-Jinja highway to dual carriage, something that will ease traffic in and out of Kampala.
With the increasing population around the Namanve and Mbalala industrial areas, UCU Holdings would be positioned to benefit from it, since it is targeting the upcoming middle class.
UCU Holdings is 99% owned by the university, while 1 % is held in a trust by the Pronvince of the Church of Uganda, under the archbishop. The board of directors is drawn from the University Council and has been in existence since 2003, but it actively began work in 2008.
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Uganda Christian University's community newspaper
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