Private sector to help achieve housing goal

A private-public partnership is needed to fulfill Government’s ambitious goal of building 10 000 houses over the next five years.

Minister of Housing, Lands and Maintenance Dwight Sutherland said this was why the Mia Mottley-led administration has been creating an enabling environment for the private sector to build more than half those houses.

Speaking to the media following Wednesday’s tour of Ridge Meadows in Christ Church where B.J Investments Limited has been providing homeownership opportunities for 565 Barbados families, Sutherland stressed that Government was on a mission with its housing revolution.

Noting that 1 400 houses will be built by the end of the financial year through the private-public partnerships, the Minister explained that in addition to the houses at Ridge Meadows, B.J Investments was designing another 400-unit affordable income community at Lancaster, St James.

“This will redound to over 1000 houses to be built within the next year and a half. And if all goes well, we intend to partner with B.J Investments along with other private sector entities to build out more than half of what we need over the next five years. Government within the next three or four weeks will open what we call Alleyne’s Court at Whitepark Road and that is another 20 units.

“Thus far, we have built some 20 units at Parish Land extension, and currently in St Philip, if you look to the north of . . . Dodds Prison you will see some infrastructural development going on there. That will redound to another 150 houses,” he said.

Sutherland reminded that as a result of Government’s contract with Dura Villa Homes from Guyana, 350 houses will be produced and installed before the end of the financial year, with the first ten set to be erected at Clifton, St Philip.

He added that 100 of the 300 houses being constructed at Atlantic Breeze, Chancery Lane, Christ Church have already been completed and sold.

“I just want Barbadians to know that as we speak about housing…we are here working daily to ensure that Barbadians, especially those within the lower- and middle-income bracket will achieve their dream of owning a home,” he said.

Ridge Meadows offers a choice of four house types, ranging from two-bedroom, one-bathroom to three-bedroom, two-bathroom on lots averaging about 4 500 square feet each.

All houses are constructed from precast concrete designed to meet the Miami-Dade hurricane code, have an energy-efficient design, come fitted with solar water heaters, and have the roof capacity to accommodate solar panels for electricity generation.

Plans are also on the table to develop a town centre on the site for commercial tenants to offer goods and services to residents of Ridge Meadows, neighbouring communities, and the general public.

In addition, Ridge Meadows offers home buyers assistance in obtaining mortgage financing from commercial banks and credit unions. According to persons involved in the project, credit unions are financing the majority of the houses already sold.

Chairman of B.J Investments Limited, Bjorn Bjerkhamn, a leading real estate developer who has developed several notable projects at the luxury end of the market in Barbados over the past 60 years, said his effort to give every Barbadian the opportunity to obtain an affordable home was his way of showing appreciation to the country that has given him much.

He has worked with the National Housing Corporation (NHC) to achieve his objective, and over the past several years has developed the Villages at Coverley, Whitehall Meadows at Mile-and-a-Quarter, St Peter, in addition to Ridge Meadows which has been a work in progress over the past two years.

“It is not a terribly profitable thing to do but we don’t have to make a profit on everything. We do make a profit up and down the West Coast when we work there, so this is what we do to try to give back to Barbados for being so good to us.

“I am happy that we are looking at doing some joint ventures with the Government to work on more lands. Getting land is the most difficult part of this whole game and I am hoping that the Government will assist us in that measure so that we can do what we do so well – develop it, build it and sell it, “ Bjerkhamn said. (AH)