Al-Rawi: New housing complex is not vote-padding

RURAL Development and Local Government Minister Faris Al-Rawi has dismissed as "raw politics" UNC claims of vote-padding in the opening – in a general election year – of the 90-apartment City Heights complex in San Fernando.

“I ignore Opposition concerns. It’s raw politics,” he said during an interview after the opening on February 6 which was attended by the Prime Minister and ministers of housing, local government, agriculture and works and transport.

Al-Rawi who is also MP for San Fernando West said there are 173,000 people on the Housing Development Corporation's (HDC) waiting list, and as demand (for housing) continues to grow, government has taken the initiative to construct more affordable homes.

The Elections and Boundaries (EBC) has proposed adjustments to 16 constituencies that would see a transfer of voters from one polling division to another, in time for the general elections.

San Fernando East and San Fernando West are among the constituencies that would see a shifting of votes, which the Opposition believes is to the advantage of the ruling party whose MPs hold both seats. Brian Manning is San Fernando East MP.

At the launch, Dr Rowley his government was simply addressing a need for housing.

He said since he held the portfolio of housing minister, the site of the housing complex located at the Mon Repos and Cocoyea Roundabout, was abandoned by after an ice factory went out of business.

“It was such a perfect site for what it is being used for today. It always attracted my attention as a former minister of housing what could we do with a place like this, especially at the gateway into the city of San Fernando.”

He said had government not converted the land into a housing complex, it would have gone the way of squatting.

"It would have gone inadvertently and inexorable to becoming San Fernando’s latest squatting site because it was available, attracting the attention of unauthorised occupiers. Instead of having City Heights, we easily could have had ‘shack heights.’

“By taking the site, removing what was there from the private sector, removing what was there from the State sector and making the site available for a properly planned programme where these units, not particularly expensive but also not cheap, because no housing is cheap, but for an affordable price 90 units have been built here and, if my advice is correct, they all have been sold a long time ago.”

Cost per unit is said to be in the $1.5 million range.

Rowley said this pilot project has confirmed that public-private partnership in housing can work.

“What that tells you is that there is a market for this level of housing and we need to do much more because the demand is there.

“The builder worked alongside the Ministry of Housing, and again if my information is correct, most, if not all of their occupiers would have come from the list or would have had some interest in getting themselves on the list at the HDC

“So, this programme has shown us that it is possible to do things a little differently and do it very successfully,”

Rowley pointed to the long HDC list of applicants and the time it takes for them to be serviced, based on the availability of units in the programme.

“Each passing year as the demand grows, we have to find a different way to meet the needs of our population that could support housing programmes of this nature.”

He said different government ministries had to come together to the point where a project was identified.

“The most important decision we had to make was to get the Furness Group to move from wherever they are, to becoming contributors to housing units in Trinidad and Tobago and boy, have they delivered spectacularly.

“The designs are simply not overly complicated, very functional using a lot of skills and materials that are available to us in TT, but most importantly using the experience of the private sector in home solutions, who as you know would have built a number of housing projects around the country.

“We need to do more of that in order to satisfy the needs particularly of young people who are willing to start their own families and find the marketplace for housing which is quite frightening.”

Rowley spoke to programmes that assist from the base level to assist families in the lower income range, including some 150,000 modern units that have been placed in San Fernando and on the train line to move people out of destitution and horrible living conditions.