500 houses to be distributed

SHARLENE RAMPERSAD

HOUSING Minister Randall Mitchell says the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) will allocate 500 houses within the next two months.

Mitchell was speaking on Wednesday at the corporation’s Lake View Development in Point Fortin, where he distributed keys to eight Cedros families who lost their homes to coastal erosion last week.

“The target in the next two months: we expect to allocate about 500 housing units – so, subject to the availability of funds, we are wrapping up our construction and the delivery of homes, and we are making it available as soon as they are handed over to the applicants,” Mitchell told the media.

He said a number of apartments in the Lake View development were abandoned in 2010 and had been inhabited by cows and overgrown with bush.

“I’m thankful to the HDC for restarting this development. This development was dormant since 2010. In 2015, when we came into government, the HDC made the decision to restart this development. In fact, these units here were just shells, and...these were some of the units that were restarted and now finished. Many of the units on this side of the development were the ones that were left in abeyance, so work has been restarted, and if you drive through, you can see that many of those units have been completed.” He said as soon as the units are handed over to the HDC, the process for allocation begins.

The introduction of a housing construction incentive plan would increase the demand for units, he said. “Our target for the year is actually a moving target, because we have now the housing construction incentive programme coming in play, that will be launched soon, so that will obviously increase the target.”

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