Pasanggrahan Royal Guest House.
PHILIPSBURG–Minister of Public Housing, Environment, Spatial Development and Infrastructure VROMI Miklos Giterson has agreed to renew the long-lease fees for Pasanggrahan Royal Guest House based on a phased implementation of the new canon (long-lease fees) for that property.
Pasanggrahan’s long lease expired on February 28, 2017. Giterson said that, together with the Ministry, he had several discussions with a Pasanggrahan representative about the renewal of the long-lease agreement for the property.
Giterson was responding at the time to a question posed by a Member of Parliament (MP) during a parliament meeting last week.
The Pasanggrahan hotel is situated on a parcel of land with a size of 2,320 square metres. The right of long-lease was issued in 1957, for NAf. 0.03 per m2. A total of amount of NAf. 75 was being paid for the whole parcel in long lease. The long-lease right was transferred to Pasanggrahan Royal Guest House in 1971. The Royal Guest House, which occupies approximately 250m2 of the full parcel, was designated as a protected monument several years ago.
“Only the Royal Guesthouse was landmarked as a monument, not the rest of the property, which currently is developed with several multi-storied commercial and hotel building structures. The canon price remained the same for the entire period of the long lease and the long lease expired in February of 2017,” Giterson said.
“The process we are in now is the renewal of the long lease on the property, whereas new conditions can now be imposed. The current price for long-lease owners in Philipsburg is NAf. 10 per square metre. This means that the canon would significantly increase.
“Considering the commercial use of the property, we suggested to split up the parcel, as it is only the Royal Guesthouse that is designated as a protected monument. It was suggested that for this part of the property, because of the obligations of the property-owner with respect to the protected monument, a more moderate long-lease canon can be applied.
“We do not believe that the entire remainder of the property, which is not designated as a protected monument but is used for commercial/hotel purposes, should be exempted from the regular canon that is applied to all other new similar cases in Philipsburg.”
The proposal to split the monument part of the property, was not acceptable to the developer.
Giterson said that in an effort to moderate the drastic increase in the long-lease canon, he had agreed to renew the long lease on the property based on a phased implementation of the new canon.
“I have issued a decree wherein the new canon will be NAf. 2 per m2 for the first five years; NAf. 5 per m2 for the following five years, and NAf. 10 per m2 after a period of 10 years. I believe this gives the developer a fair chance to reconstruct before adjusting to the actual new canon to be imposed in 10 years’ time,” Giterson said.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/90102-phased-implementation-of-long-lease-fees-for-pasanggrahan
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