The Tamil Nadu Housing Board, the public sector agency, is active in housing and commercial projects after nearly a decade of dormancy.

It is planning affordable urban housing for the middle- and low-income group. After going it alone in the earlier years, TNHB today is open to joint ventures with private developers for cost effectiveness. According to Dr P. Rama Mohana Rao, Chairman and Managing Director, TNHB is now a debt-free company. It is well set to meet the State Government’s target to create over 22,000 residential units this year.

TNHB hopes to fill the gap in supply of housing — rising costs have made housing unaffordable to the middle-income and lower middle-income groups — to the average city dweller. It will keep cost low by offering small housing units of 500 sq.ft and 800 sq.ft within Chennai and other urban centres. This would be through joint venture with the private sector and its own projects outsourced to private contractors.

Some of the locations where TNHB projects are to come up in Chennai include the prime KK Nagar area where it plans to set up a commercial-cum-residential project of over 5 lakh sq. ft. It is also planning a clutch of projects in many of the well developed residential areas within the city and in the suburbs, including Ambattur, Koyambedu, Sholinganallur and Gummidipoondi.

TNHB also plans to develop six townships through joint ventures on the outskirts of Chennai, Mr Rao said.

Two would be on Old Mahabalipuram Road — the IT corridor — and two on the East Coast Road, and one each in Oragadam, the fast developing industrial suburb to the west of Chennai where leading telecom and electronic products manufacturers are investing and in Gummidipoondi, another industrial area to the north of Chennai.

The TNHB Act has been amended to provide a legal framework for the public-private partnership for its joint ventures. It is now appointing consultants for a range of projects to study the locations and identify the products for development — whether residential, commercial, office space or mixed use.

TNHB has the advantage of having land banks — though he did not want to disclose the exact extent of holding — in prime localities in Chennai. In the joint ventures, the builder makes the payment for a part of the land in cash and as built-up area — about a fourth of the built-up area, which TNHB would sell to the buyers at affordable rates. The private developer would have the choice of pricing for the rest of the area.

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