Govt moving ahead with housing project at Perseverance

Government’s ‘Housing Solutions for 2017 and Beyond’ initiative is moving full steam ahead and contractors have already been hired to build low-income, moderate-income and middle-income homes at the Perseverance Housing Scheme on the East Bank of Demerara.

The Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) on Tuesday signed agreements with 14 contractors for the construction of houses which will develop a model village exhibition to be hosted from May 1–5.

The signing of the contracts took place at the Housing Ministry on Brickdam.

Junior Communities Minister with responsibility for housing, Valarie Adams-Patterson explained that the project will have on display life-sized houses for members of the public to view and which will be up for sale after the exhibition.

Interested persons would have to make two payments, one to the CH&PA for the land and another to the contractor for the house.

Purchasers would have to have an application in the authority’s system or would have to meet the criteria to qualify for an allocation.

The Minister explained that the dual payment formula is to guarantee persons in the system are allotted homes.

“That is to ensure, our objective as I said is to reduce the number of applicants that we have in the system and so we cannot afford to have persons who had a previous allocation coming again and being able to purchase that house,” she explained.

Currently, there are approximately 25,000 applicants in the CH&PA system awaiting allocations. Additionally, with the minimum age being changed from 21 years to 18 years, more and more applications are being received on a daily basis.

The low-income land will cost G$300,000, the moderate-income G$500,000 and the middle-income G$700,000.

The contractors will have to construct 10 low-income, five moderate-income, and eight middle-income houses.

Contractors were given an 80×45 feet low-income land to construct a 600 square foot house and an 80 x 62 feet moderate-income land to construct a 900 square foot moderate-income house.

Those contractors opting to construct middle-income houses were given 80×85 feet land to build 1100-square foot houses. The cost of the houses will be determined by the contractors and there will be no policy by the agency to control those prices.

“We’ve had meetings with the exhibitors and we shared our expectations but we cannot control their price. We expect that they will keep it within current market price because they have to sell it and if they price is high, they would not be able to and there is a clause in the agreement that will take care of that,” she explained.

However, the Minister assured that contractors will be penalised for failure to sell off the houses within six months after the closing of the exhibition.

She emphasised that there will be a penalty enforced if the contractors fail to sell the houses within the stipulated six months; however, she could not remember what the nature of the consequences will entail.

Furthermore, the Minister explained that the CH&PA will be constructing six duplexes for the model village and that one developer committed to constructing a townhouse.

She noted that one of the aims is to conduct a survey which will inform the Government of the public’s preferences before it goes ahead to develop duplexes and townhouses across the country.

“If and when the CH&PA decides that we are going to continue to build low-income, moderate-income, middle-income, whatever, we want to understand. Rather than us giving what models we think the Guyanese people want to have, we (would) now understand what they need,” she stated.

Moreover, the Authority conducted diligence background on the developers to ensure that they have the human resource and financial capability to complete the houses. Their agreement stipulates that they must submit weekly progress reports to the authority.

Each contractor has been given a construction milestone that would also guide their construction and has also provided for on-site monitoring.

The contractor is also responsible for any defects to the building during the period up to when the house is sold. They shall be responsible for the maintenance of all drain reserves and parapets.

Also, the purchaser is prohibited from making any modifications or extensions to the building purchased for a period of five years, except with the consent of the CH&PA. The purchaser may make modifications thereafter with the permission of the Eccles/RamsburgNeighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC).

The land and both the house cannot be sold until 10 years after the date of passing of the respective certificate.