GOVERNMENT STILL HAS some distance to go to clear the long list of housing applications going back more than 20 years.
Minister of Housing and Lands Michael Lashley conceded this on Saturday.
However, he said Government had made a “dent” as the high-rise programme and the plan to carve out 500 lots would accommodate many of these people.
“We have started to review the persons who have been on the list since 1972 and we are seriously looking to accommodate them. We’ve actually [helped] some of them but we have a long way to go,” he said.
Lashley made the comments during the registry fair of an incremental home construction programme at the Ministry of Housing and Lands in Country Road, St Michael.
He said the processing of the applications was fairer under the present administration, whose philosophy was that everyone was entitled to an equal opportunity.
He also mentioned a soon-to-be-started lower-to-middle-income housing project in West Terrace, St James, aimed at assisting young professionals.
In addition, Lashley spoke about Government’s property conveyance programme, saying it was going well despite some “stumbling blocks”.
“In 1994 [under the Barbados Labour Party], the National Housing Corporation (NHC) entered into a divestment programme without any legal title,” he said. “In 2008, I had to go to Parliament and vest properties in the Ivy and Deacons and a number of other properties . . . and delivered a number of conveyances.
Stumbling blocks
“There were some stumbling blocks [where] we had some illegal additions to the houses. What we have done is instruct the Attorney General’s chambers to provide a validation order for those structures and once that is passed and the other vestings completed, Barbadians will receive their conveyances,” he said.
In a presentation to the House of Assembly, Lashley, in 2010, said Government was looking to introduce special legislation to fast-track the vesting of NHC units so tenants who made deposits to buy them could get proper titles.
He claimed then that the former administration had kept the public “in the dark” in relation to some of the challenges and problems that the NHC encountered in providing titles for the units.
“So it meant that you received deposits, signed your agreement for sale, but you could not provide the units to [tenants] because the NHC had no absolute title to them,” he had explained.
“Secondly, they had surveying work [that was] incomplete to establish proper boundaries and throughout the estates, we had numerous extensions contrary to the Town Planning Act.
“It meant that you could receive no Certificate of Compliance to finalize or complete the sale of the unit to the particular tenant,” he had said.
At the fair, Lashley also told the media that 70 out of the 120 conveyances had been completed for those who purchased land in Coverley.
Lashley also spoke about the issue of rent collection, saying people in Country Road were paying rent on time, along with almost everyone in Tweedside Road.
He added that people were coming forward to pay rent in order to own a piece of the rock under the programme where those who were renting units for 20 years or more are given the opportunity to own them.