Tenants in the government’s high-rise rental residential building for senior citizens on Plot P in Areia Preta district will need to pay to use its clubhouse and sport facilities, according to government announcements earlier this week.
Tenants are scheduled to move into their flats in the housing estate from October 15 after it was inaugurated on Thursday last week.
The housing estate has four podium levels from the ground to third floor. The podium’s second floor will be used as a clubhouse and a health facility, while the third floor will be used as an outdoor podium garden and indoor sport facilities.
The government announced the fees for using the housing estate’s clubhouse and sport facilities in the Official Gazette (BO) on Monday.
The fees were announced by Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture Elsie Ao Ieong U in an executive order.
According to the order, seniors living there will have to pay 30 patacas per hour to use a music room, 40 patacas to use a multifunctional room, 80 patacas to use a large multifunctional room, 80 patacas to use a karaoke room, and 100 patacas to use the hall for Cantonese opera.
Seniors will have to pay 10 patacas per hour to use a gym and 15 patacas to use a chess room, while they will have to pay 10 patacas to play table tennis and 25 patacas to play snooker.
Tenants will be offered a 20-percent discount on their rent during their first three-year lease, because of which their rent will range between 4,328 patacas and 5,344 patacas a month depending on their studio flats’ floors and locations.
After attending the housing estate’s inauguration ceremony last week, Social Welfare Bureau (IAS) President Wilson Hon Wai told reporters that the government was aiming to strike a balance between the expenses of operating the housing estate and the income from the tenants’ rents, i.e., without having to spend money from the public coffers.
This photo taken during last week’s media tour shows a karaoke room on the second floor of the Plot P seniors’ rental housing estate. – Photo: Tony Wong
