Gov’t plans to build 2,000 more homes this financial year

Having constructed 900 houses one year after launching the government’s 10,000 homes programme, Housing Minister Dwight Sutherland said a target of 2,000 has been set for 2023/24.

“We intend to build 2,000 houses this financial year,” he said, noting that construction has already begun at Lancaster, Colleton and Poole in St John, while several other sites have been identified for housing development.

Speaking to the media Saturday morning on the sidelines of the Sagicor Mortgage Fair on the grounds of its Wildey office, he said the government’s aim of constructing 10,000 homes in 10 years is attainable.
Through its partnership with Barbados, Guyana’s Dura Villa Company will be providing 100 hardwood houses monthly.

“The contract was signed for the first 350 for the financial year 2022 to 2023, which ended in March this year, but we only received 30, because we started late, having announced it and then putting everything in place. One hundred houses will be coming into the country and going across the length and breadth of Barbados. We have land in St Lucy, in St Peter at Pleasant Hall, in St Philip, in St George. The most challenging process is providing the infrastructure, the water and the electricity and once we can get that right then we will be able to ensure that we meet the housing demand in this country,” Sutherland said.

He also knocked any claim that the units are the size of “pens” as claimed by government backbencher Trevor Prescod in Parliament recently.

The veteran MP accused some private contractors engaged in the government’s housing programme of building “pens” for low-income earners in this country.

“They also are giving housing contracts to contractors who are building pens for poor people. In order to make things look good and to say ‘We are producing units’ pens are being constructed for poor people across Barbados. Adequate facilities are required. I don’t want to hear that this contractor is prepared to do the work at this specific price, but then the facilities and the size and the space between a bedroom and a drawing room is equivalent to any pen in this country,” Prescod said in a land acquisition debate.

Refuting this, Sutherland said that the smallest of the one bedroom units provided within the new programme is over 500 square feet.

“We found houses that were damaged in Hurricane Elsa that were pens, some were under 200 square feet. This government took it upon itself as policy that the smallest house, a one bedroom, will be 526 square feet. That is the house space alone for a one bedroom. So, when my colleague spoke about pens, I am not sure if he was talking about what he saw up there, but that is not the government’s policy at all … We maintain that in an effort to move Barbados and put us back as a country punching above its weight, our housing stock has to be one emulated within this region and we are not about building pens. Persons must be comfortable and even the bedrooms have space,” he added.

The housing minister also gave an update on the Chinese houses, saying 30 per cent of the 150 imported to the island have been completed.

“These have gotten off to a slow start. What happened is that the skills did not come with the houses, so the Chinese labour that was supposed to come and install the houses didn’t come as they did not receive work permits. And what we had to do was to allow the local assemblers and local builders to transfer the Chinese knowledge from them to Barbadians and that is what has taken so long. In every disappointment is a blessing, because we now have Barbadians trained in building light gauge steel,” he said. (JB)