SEVERAL years after the dust over the ownership of a vast landed property located at Km 21, Lekki-Epe Expressway, Lagos, had settled, a new estate that will provide home for about 385 families, has taken off.The developers, Citiprops Limited, could not move to site until all knotty issues it had with the Lagos State Government had been settled. The amicable resolution came almost 16 years after the estate was conceptualised.Following 'incursion' into the choice land by the state government, and in determination to recover same, Citiprops with eight others had instituted a court action against the state at the Lagos High Court. It listed the governor, Commissioner for Housing; Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Housing; Permanent Secretary, Bureau of Lands and the Attorney General of Lagos State as defendants.Conducting a facility tour of the estate recently, Vice Chairman, Citiprops Limited, Deacon Ken Pela said that development was initially stalled by an overlap between the survey plan for the original title from which the land was derived and the survey plan of the then Jubilee Housing Scheme of the Otedola Administration. After this problem was resolved with the concession of approximately 1.5 hectares, a Provisional Layout Approval No. DM 589 was obtained from the Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning and development began in 1999.When Bola Tinubu came on board, the battle over the land re-emerged as the agreements earlier reached to readjust the Jubilee Scheme (now christened Abraham Adesanya Estate), to recognise the Eden Gardens Estate, was thrown overboard.On resolution of this second disruption in October 2002, after the concession of a total of approximately 4.5 hectares of land, which was replaced in Awoyaya area, an additional 17 hectares of land was acquired for a Scheme II to accommodate an additional 200 families, bringing the total proposed residents to 600. The development again started in earnest with the development of drains, the main entrance boulevard and the incorporation of Scheme II.However, the problems again returned in August 2003 when the state government allocated a portion of the Scheme II to Ibile Holdings in perpetuation of the over-lap that had caused the first and second disruptions. The developers consequently decided to resolve the issue before continuing development of the estate.He concluded that to the terms of settlement have been signed with the government conceding all the land currently comprising Schemes I and II of Eden Gardens and relocating all those they had allocated the land to while the portions encroached on were replaced in Awoyaya.Besides the court awarding the landed property to the claimants, the state was also restrained perpetually from further trespassing on the land.
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