Private sector bodies impressed with housing developments along East Bank corridor

TourGeorgetown: Members of the Private Sector were today given a tour of several housing development projects along the East Bank Demerara corridor, which are aiding in the massive transformation of that area.

 The Private Sector members all expressed their satisfaction over what is taking place in the local housing sector and moreso the country’s development at large.

Housing Minister Irfaan Ali, and other officials from his ministry took members, Private Sector Commission (PSC) Chairman, Ramesh Persaud, Vice Chairman, Edward Boyer, Past President Clinton Urling, Kit Nascimento, Annette Arjune and other stakeholders on the tour.

The first site visited was Eccles where 60 turn-key homes for young professionals have been constructed. The project officially started in 2012, and has seen young professionals, taking full advantage of the public private partnership initiative.

According to Minister Ali, in 2009 the area which now has a high occupancy was a swampy area, but today it has one of the fastest rate of occupation any housing development project has seen.

“We are in partnership with the private sector and professional groups. The government would have put in the infrastructure, private capital would have assisted in the building of the homes and the professionals were allocated.”

Each house which features bungalow roof is fitted with three bedrooms, two toilets and bath area, kitchen, cupboards and room for expansion. It carries a cost of $13 M but with a bank value of $25 M.

“This partnership was able to bring the private sector and professionals together and the government, since the beginning of this we have had immense interest in this type of initiative. People are moving away from land allocation because we are able to achieve economy of scale.”

This initiative, the Minister explained, gives home owners 35 percent less of what they would have to invest in terms of security and supervision cost if they were building for themselves.

However, in explaining to members of the Private Sector about why some sections of the road have only been partially completed, Minister Ali said the idea is to complete road work when there is 75 percent occupancy in the scheme.

This, he said, is also done, taking into consideration heavy vehicles traversing for construction purposes. In addition, the construction has had several spin-off benefits as some 300 persons were provided with full time employment over an eight-month period.

The Ministry will be looking at constructing another 200 homes at the same value by 2015 as there continues to be a growing demand.

 Already the Ministry has been flooded with close to 600 requests for the turn -key type homes.

The team also visited another location in the scheme where works are ongoing on 31 houses under the same project, but with a different value. The second set of houses feature two flats, three bedrooms, kitchen facility and all have been allocated.  The structures, through the initiative carry a value of $19.5 million with a bank value of $30 M.

Meanwhile the Private Sector members lauded the government for the initiative and noted that they will be collaborating with the Ministry with a view to creating opportunities for persons who will be occupying the schemes.

Vice Chairman of the PSC, Edward Boyer said, “We are all very impressed with what we saw here. I just want to say we are going to be bringing back a technical team to look at these projects on a wider scale with a view to see how we can structure to be a part of the development.”

Boyer added that the private sector will be collaborating more in terms of the commercial, manufacturing and employment sectors as over the next few months there will be rapid development and opportunities for investment in these areas.

.“We will be looking at the opportunity for business. There is a great amount of opportunities that businesses can benefit from that is an important focus that we will look at, as the impact on the economy will be significant.”

In addition, similar sentiments were expressed by Kit Nascimento as he lauded the government’s effort in the housing sector.

“It is the job of a government to house its people well. It’s one of the most important means of use of taxpayers’ money. This is superb evidence of the government carrying out its mandate.”