Govt ‘to turn derelict buildings into climate-resilient homes’

The government is stepping up plans to convert abandoned and derelict buildings into new housing, as part of a broader drive to create a climate-resilient Barbados, Acting Prime Minister Dr William Duguid has told a hemispheric forum of housing ministers.

The senior minister for infrastructure, addressing the 34th general assembly of the Forum of Ministers and High-Level Authorities of Housing and Urban Development of Latin America and the Caribbean (MINURVI) at the Hilton Barbados Resort, said the changing climate was exposing weaknesses in the built environment and urged countries to maximise the use of vacant land and unused structures to reduce housing deficits.

“The infrastructure of today was built for a climate that no longer exists,” he said. “As we build for the future, we must build for the new climate that exists. It means building back better with greater emphasis on resilience, and it is not only infrastructure of roads, but infrastructure as it relates to buildings and housing as well.”

Dr Duguid said the discussions on the use of vacant land and abandoned buildings were timely, given recent extreme weather events across the region. He linked the conference theme to the devastation caused recently by Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica and Cuba. He told the gathering that underutilised assets could help countries close housing gaps, attract investment and create stronger urban spaces if properly leveraged.

He said: “The use of vacant land and abandoned buildings and how these underutilised assets have the potential to contribute to local urban dynamics and help reduce housing and infrastructure deficits; issues such as these are being grappled with here in Barbados as we seek to identify means by which governments can leverage their land assets to attract private investment in regeneration and housing, empowering national governments to mobilise resources for inclusive and resilient urban development.”

The acting prime minister said the Ministry of Housing, Lands and Maintenance was pursuing several policies in this direction, including work with the Inter-American Development Bank on the reuse of vacant lots and derelict houses for future housing projects.

“In collaboration with the IDB through a technical cooperation, work is ongoing to look at the reuse of vacant lots and derelict houses in the urban corridor for future housing development,” he said. “I will be looking forward to seeing that because when I was minister, that was a goal that we had. And it is always a challenge to be able to redirect and reuse derelict houses or vacant lots.” He stressed that housing and urban development were now climate, social justice, public health and economic competitiveness issues.

Minister of Housing Chris Gibbs said these realities underscored the urgency of the conference and the need for coordinated regional approaches.

“This is what makes this conference so important — that we can together see how we can build resilience across our infrastructure,” he said, noting that the lessons from Jamaica reinforced the importance of proper drainage systems.

Gibbs said the themes of urban transition, housing, climate change adaptation, and resilience aligned closely with the climate change talks at the recent COP30 ministerial meeting in Belém, Brazil. He warned that climate impacts had become a global equaliser and that every country was operating with heightened vulnerability.

In a pre-recorded address, the executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), José Manuel Salazar Xirinachs, said the assembly came at a decisive moment for the region. He warned that the region faced “a long-term inability to grow,” a “high inequality, low social mobility and weak social cohesion trap,” and “a low institutional capacity and ineffective governance” that were being magnified by the environmental crisis.

“Nowhere are they more visible than in the housing sector, where millions of families still live without basic services or in precarious conditions that expose them even more to climate risks,” he said. (SZB)