Landowners to develop satellite township

By PETER ESILA
THE Government has launched the Napanapa pilot project which will see landowners partner with the Department of Lands and Physical Planning and investors develop 585 hectares of land.
Prime Minister James Marape presented two state leases to the Kuriu landowners through chairman Inogo Gabe, to develop into the Tuhava satellite town.
Lands and Physical Planning Minister John Rosso said the Napanapa pilot project was something the department had been working on since 2017 in partnership with the Kuriu landowners from Roku village, Central, and their partner developers.
The 585 hectares will cater for 4,000 allotments.
Rosso said the Napanapa project was using legislation (section 10 (2) of the Land Act 1996) and major reforms on customary land tenure were being progressed through the work of the National Land Development Programme (Phase 2).
“The section 10(2) agreement structure which underpins the mobilisation of 585 hectares of customary land for the development of the Tuhava satellite town through the Napanapa Pilot Project will be enhanced through a series of amendments to the Land Act 1996 with the view to restrict all primary state leases so that the landowners become the land developers as the state lease title owners.
“Their partner developers would buy state leases in the form of a subleases following subdivisional development,” he said. “Affordable housing, in the Tuhava Satellite Town Master Plan that has just been approved by the National Physical Planning Board, a minimum of 4,000 residential houses will be built with fully integrated developments, such as schools, a medical centre, a women only technical college, a mariner and so forth.
“This project led by the private sector and customary landowners will therefore provide a place to call home for many, both Papua New Guineans and foreigners.”