Government taking steps to meet demand for housing

Government is moving swiftly to satisfy the demand for housing in Barbados with almost 3000 Barbadians having applied under the Home Ownership Providing Energy (HOPE) Project thus far.

CEO Tamara Allman says HOPE continues to receive applications daily with 2971 applicants thus far and 30 applicants approved already.

Construction of 152 houses is now underway at Vespera Gardens, Lancaster, St James, to be completed in two phases.

Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who spoke during the staging event of the HOPE project on Saturday, says her Government is moving to seal the promise of constructing 10,000 houses by the end of its five-year term.

“We have determined that it was critical for us to enter the housing market and satisfy a serious demand for housing in this country that regrettably has been there for way too long. It became evident that we needed to reduce the cost of land, reduce the cost of construction, reduce the cost of transactions, reduce the cost of accessing the mortgage and make it more affordable,” Mottley said.

She says it was done by trying to cap the price of land to the buyer with regards to how much is being paid for the land.

The Prime Minister says her team felt strongly for Barbadians to be able to afford mortgages in an easier way if possible.

“It just so happened that the expansion of renewable energy that is necessary for us to fight the climate crisis is upon us. It means therefore that while you earn during the day with your job this house is earning for you every day as well and by reason of that you’re being able to afford the house at a cheaper price than you otherwise might have paid had we not used the homeownership providing energy model in this respect,” she said.

Chairman of HOPE Barbados Tony Hoyos, during his address, says the HOPE team is now expanding to townhouses.

“There are a number of people here who have qualified for loans and we’ve invited them to come and have a sneak peek. From here on out every Saturday we will have show units open to the public. This is about 155 houses we want to build here although we are actually in the design phase now of bringing in some townhouses because those will allow us to increase the density of the area and also allow us to expand the offering,” he said.

Hoyos added that the land at Pool, St John is being cleared for 201 residences, which started two weeks ago.

The construction of 85 residences in Colleton, St Lucy, is also set to begin in the near future, and hundreds of houses in Searles, Christ Church, and at Vineyard in St Philip.

“Our ambition is to build 1000 of these houses per year for the next five years, which would give us 5000 houses of the Government’s stated programme of building 10000 houses in five years,” he said.

The other 5000 houses will be built by other Government agencies including the National Housing Corporation (NHC) and the Ministry of Housing, Lands, and Maintenance.

At Vespera Gardens the 152 houses will be completed in two phases. Phase one consisted of 90 houses made up of 49 two-bedroom houses and 41 three-bedroom houses. Phase 2 will be 62 houses made of 29 two-bedroom houses and 33 three-bedroom houses. The homes are completed with tiles, built-in closets, and kitchen cupboards with a quartz countertop. (MR)