Govt seeks to get back $350M

Speaking at the official launch of Victoria Keyes on the Diego Martin Highway yesterday, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley revealed the plan to those present.

“In St James, even as we complete this development, you would find another 200 units or so which have remained largely unattended for the past six years. What we intend to do, as we sell these units, ... that we would begin the completion of those units on George Cabral Street, but those would not be completed at this level, at this cost, and they would not be multi-million dollar units,” he said.

Rowley stated the initial intention of the HDC was to build low to medium income housing at Victoria Keyes. However, in the 12 years since construction of the units began, the finishing was changed, facilities were added, and cost increased considerably.

“It would be inconceivable in the housing distribution programme for lower-income and middle-income persons to make properties available at $3 million and $4 million so the State was forced to sell these units on the open market. The alternative would have been wholly unacceptable public policy,” he said.

Rowley stated the HDC had over 100,000 applicants and that it was not realistic to expect the government to provide housing for everyone.

He said Government would continue to make a significant contribution to the housing situation, but lamented that Government was ‘not seeing the kind of response’ they were hoping for from the Private Sector to assist.

He said the Housing Ministry was discussing other arrangements to make the most of the ‘little money’ available to them, and that Government intended to use competition and other policies to bring the cost of construction more in line with a realistic marketplace.

Going into more detail, Minister of Housing and Urban Development Randall Mitchell stated that 12 years ago, the Victoria Keyes project was estimated at $2.5 million but in 2011, the then government instructed the HDC to enlarge the apartments, and to include facilities such as a multi-storeyed car park, pool, club house, and tennis court.

These modifications raised the cost to $652 million so that the apartments became financially outof- reach to lower- and middle-income earners. Therefore, the ruling Government made the decision to place 206 of the 264 units up for sale on the open market.

The cost of the one, two, and three-bedroom units on floors three to eight cost ranges from $1.4 million to $4.5 million.

However, 48 units on the ground and first floors of the three towers were reserved for allocation through the Rent-to-Own Programme and targeted towards the physically challenged.

“We are giving the opportunity of home ownership to those HDC applicants at the uppermost band of earners on the database. Those applicants, who may be professionals, and their families will have a chance to own one of these sought after units. “These are persons who may not have the ability to qualify to purchase a unit now, but who will surely be able to in 3-5 years from now. These units will be subject to the usual HDC qualifying criteria,” he explained.

Ten apartments would be retained for use by the State.