DOHA: Yawning shortages of affordable housing for limited-income expatriate families are now giving way to portacabins on offer in single villa compounds on low rents in some areas in and out of the city.
Some families have begun living in portacabins, even provided with “dangerously” makeshift electric and water supply connections, reports Al Sharq.
The daily said even rents of residential units in illegally partitioned villas that were within the reach of low and middle-income expatriate families earlier are soaring.
“Pigeonhole residential units in illegally partitioned villas are competing with regular apartments as far as rents are concerned, which are soaring,” Al Sharq said.
According to the daily, despite clampdown on villas partitioned in violation of the law, advertisements to let and sublet residential units on these properties continue to appear in local newspapers and on social media.
“Local newspapers and social media are inundated with such advertisements but nobody cares,” the daily said, adding its reporter paid a field visit and sighted such villas in areas like Al Markhiya and near TV Roundabout.
“There are hundreds of illegally partitioned villas in these and other areas,” the daily said.
Such villas were also sighted where tens of single workers arguably employed by shopping centres were huddled together in violation of safety rules.
The daily said its reporter met former dwellers of partitioned villas who had left after having come to know that they were illegal.
Some of these families said middlemen took whole villas on rent from owners, illegally partitioned them, created makeshift residential units and sublet them to limited-income expatriate families.
“No safety rules are followed in these villas,” a family, which had occupied a unit in such a villa and left, was quoted as saying.
The daily reproduced a few advertisements that appeared in newspapers, where entire floors with big rooms, a kitchen and toilets in offer could easily be partitioned and give away to low and middle-income families on rent.
The Peninsula
