Latest update July 2nd, 2024 12:25 AM
Nov 04, 2018 News
By Leonard Gildarie
Since taking office in May 2015, the Coalition Government has announced plans to overhaul its housing drive programmes. I agree wholeheartedly. This is one area that I passionately believe has to be done right. It impacts heavily on the quality of people’s lives.
I am not overly enthusiastic of living with a mortgage and can attest to the horrors to dealing with monthly payments and those hefty insurance remittances, and at the same time carrying on a home. I literally could not buy clothes for months and lived from payday to payday. I learnt by experience what disposable income meant. I had too little of it.
Most folks shy away, in embarrassment of speaking about this. But it is the harsh reality.
Unless you are a top bracket earner, it is easy to recognize that most first-time owners of homes in Guyana, especially in the new housing schemes, are obligated to take mortgages.
We have spoken, quite extensively in the past, of the horrors of many families who are faced with the daunting task of balancing the management of millions of dollars to construct their homes, buckle, and end up with something else, thanks to ignorance and quite a few contractors who should be hogtied and whipped publicly for their criminal actions.
Housing had been a boon to the economy ever since the crazy rush in Diamond Housing Scheme area.
Haphazard at first with some cul-de-sacs that catch you by surprise, houselots there are in hot demand now, carrying prices of $5M up – not a bad profit if you think that a few of the lots were sold by CH&PA for less than $150,000 apiece.
It is the ideal area to live because of shopping and other easily accessible services including police, schools, fast-food outlets and supermarkets.
However, over the years, many housing schemes were not fortunate like Diamond, and its relatively new sister village, Golden Grove.
Because of resources, rather the lack thereof, the then administration of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic, apparently took a conscious decision of allowing development of housing schemes by house lot owners without the basic infrastructure in place.
Basic infrastructure includes, for me, roads and bridges, adequate drainage and utilities of power and water. I will not even start to talk about telephone lines.
It was simple. People wanted their own homes. They did not care about the utilities and infrastructure until reality hit home, hard. It is expensive living without utilities. You had to buy water. Quite a few owners, I am sure, would have been thinking it was better to continue renting or living with relatives.
The spin-offs from housing were remarkable. The banks and mortgage institutions like New Building Society and even Hand-in-Hand Trust cashed in. Lawyers, clerks, truckers, hardware stores, contractors…the jobs were flowing and the tax office was smiling.
But there was a big problem. Many of the housing schemes, almost two decades later, are fighting poor occupancy levels.
A Government information statement recently has driven home some harsh lessons that our policy makers have to take note of.
According to the Central Housing and Planning Authority, statistics reveal that between the years 2000 and 2015, of the approximately 66,000 allocations, 28,000 or 45 per cent of lots remain unoccupied.
Minister of Communities, Ronald Bulkan, had said, up to the close of the 10th Parliament, that between 2011 to the mid-2015 period, some 38 schemes were developed across Guyana.
Those housing schemes yielded 20,000 house lots, however, only 4,000 of those have seen units being constructed. For the 38 schemes, a total of $12.8 Billion was pumped into their development. They now require a further $16 Billion to complete infrastructure works.
Let us not beat around the bush here. That 45 percent unoccupied rate is totally unacceptable.
In Diamond, I see many vacant lots. The owners live elsewhere and overseas. The bushes are overgrown in many of them. Neighbours would complain of mosquitoes and snakes.
The reality is that for quite a number of years now, I have been hearing the stuck record and frankly it is becoming tiring.
We have tough laws but also lots of tough talk from office holders. Very little traction has been gained in rectifying the situation. CH&PA may do well to tell us its progress in taking back those house lots which are unoccupied.
This is not a complex task. In Diamond, that scheme may be more than two decades old.
Enforcement officials should drive around, stick notices on the unoccupied lots asking for the owners to contact CH&PA. Failure in three months can lead to procedures being activated for the repossession of lands and the refund of monies. I guarantee there will be some speedy action.
Government is facing a major problem with land for housing, especially on the coastlands of East Demerara. The only available ones belong to the sugar industry.
On the East Bank Demerara, there are hundreds of acres of land stretching between Eccles to Diamond sold under conditions to private developers.
A few like Windsor Estates and Republic Gardens have actually done a lot of work.
However, quite a number of developers continue to sit on the lands without even the basic infrastructure in place, more than five years after they took possession.
CH&PA had visited the developers, warning of the conditions attached to the sale of the lands to them…they had to build early. It baffles my mind the sloth in addressing this situation.
It is pointless to have lots of rules and in-house lawyers and enforcement officers and yet we face such stupid problems. One can easily surmise that there is little interest in rectifying the situation. I do believe that it is not too late.
Why would any administration stand by and allow our assets to be treated in such manner? This is prime real estate.
We have more than 25,000 applications for house lots and turn-key homes on the files of CH&PA, it has been reported. I honestly hope that we can, at the risk of breaching some ancient copyright laws, develop the fortitude in a hurry and take some decisions.
While we are moving into an oil and gas era, the traditional sectors must not be left on the wayside. We have opportunities to spin the economy.
Big hardware players like Gafoors, although selling its Houston facilities, have enough confidence in the future to be sinking billions of dollars into another shopping area at McDoom.
This is despite the fact that quite a number of smaller hardware stores are threatening the status quo.
So yes, our policy makers have some tough decisions to make. I am looking forward to hearing about them.
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