‘Grant low-income housing concessions’

Minister of Environment Trevor Prescod has declared that as long as there is a building code, Government must put “concessions” in place for “poor people” to help them comply as they build their homes.

Prescod was speaking during the debate on the Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill in the House of Assembly yesterday.

Minister in the Ministry of Economic Affairs Marsha Caddle had earlier outlined a number of changes to the Town and Country Planning Department one of which would be the introduction of a Building code.

But her colleague Prescod was adamant that the island’s current housing stock had to be carefully looked at before such a drastic move was made.

“If you are going to bring a building code I don’t know how long it is going to take us but we got to reason because sometimes the building code might relate to certain middle income and upper-class individuals in society but you can’t insist on building codes for small people unless you bring some level of concessions for them.

The St Michael East MP said: “The state must take into consideration if we must have resilient housing in the system is the state going to supplement it. These are real important debates that I am not sure if at the highest level we are taking these things into consideration.

Prescod lamented that the majority of houses for low-income earners were made from the cheapest material on the market, therefore, making the structures vulnerable to natural disasters.

“The most houses for low-income people are being made today from any kind of material. I believe it you go to [Barbados] Lumber Company, if you see the amount of plywood sheets and damage ply too, not even marine ply or any special pine or purple heart or green heart or any of this kind of material. People are buying in bulk plywood sheets and making houses.

“Are we going to supplement small people in constructing houses or are we going to find ourselves in a situation in the next ten years or so with many homeless people in the society? If tomorrow morning we get up and there is a hurricane in Barbados all the things we now call units and housing all these things gone. So resilience at the level of the low-income people is something we have to look at and see what role the State will play.”

The Minister also criticised some planners who he said want to hold on to the old way of doing things.

“Sometimes these backward planners in the system want to hold on to certain practises and call them best practices and don’t want to make the additional changes,” Prescod said.