Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

Luck is about to strike for thou­sands of the 129,000 peo­ple on the hous­ing wait­ing list of the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) data­base. Come Sep­tem­ber, the Cor­po­ra­tion is em­bark­ing on a dri­ve en­ti­tled-Land for the Land­less. The pro­gramme is tar­get­ing the back­log on the wait­ing list as 80 per cent of the emp­ty hous­ing units are cur­rent­ly un­der re­pair be­cause of ini­tial slip­shod work. Cab­i­net re­cent­ly ap­proved HDC's re­turn to a land use pol­i­cy. The pol­i­cy was in­tro­duced by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress but halt­ed by the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion.

This time, how­ev­er, ap­pli­cants will be giv­en a foun­da­tion base to their homes. Suc­cess­ful ap­pli­cants will now have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­sign their own homes with­in the re­quired guide­lines. In ad­di­tion, ap­pli­cants will be af­ford­ed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­cide whether they want to con­struct two or three-bed­room hous­es and the choice of ma­te­r­i­al. The ini­tia­tive, Hous­ing and En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said, is two-fold and aimed at re­duc­ing the back­log of peo­ple on the wait­ing list and those de­sirous of own­ing a par­cel of land. The foun­da­tion for the hous­es will in­clude-floor­ing, toi­let/bath fa­cil­i­ties, plumb­ing and in­fra­struc­ture for the sew­er.

"Al­low­ing peo­ple to con­struct their own homes gives them the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be­come in­de­pen­dent. We are look­ing at op­tions to avoid ap­pli­cants from be­ing in debt for the next 25 to 30 years. We would pro­vide ap­pli­cants with a foun­da­tion so they can build but it must be with­in cer­tain pa­ra­me­ters. "They would be able to de­cide whether they want to use wood or con­crete, the type of roof and ceil­ing but we are very clear on the size of the unit and in­door fa­cil­i­ties," the min­is­ter said. While the cost of the lands is still be­ing de­ter­mined, the min­is­ter as­sured that it will be af­ford­able to all.

HDC promis­es 10,000 to ben­e­fit an­nu­al­ly

Mooni­lal said as many as 10,000 ap­pli­cants are ex­pect­ed to ben­e­fit from the pro­gramme an­nu­al­ly.

"It would work to­geth­er with the Land Set­tle­ment Agency (LSA). Be­tween the LSA and HDC we would have two dy­nam­ic land dis­tri­b­u­tion pro­grammes run­ning par­al­lel. We are look­ing at with­in one year to pro­vide as much as 10,000 plots for hous­ing if we use both LSA and HDC." How­ev­er, the min­is­ter warned, while the Cor­po­ra­tion was al­low­ing the ap­pli­cants the op­por­tu­ni­ty to build/de­sign their homes, the ri­ot act will be read to those bent on break­ing the rules. "The pol­i­cy is clear: the pro­gramme we are about to em­bark on is strict­ly for hous­ing. The lands are not to be used for agri­cul­ture, to open a par­lour or a dis­co. Any­one caught in vi­o­la­tion would be dealt with ac­cord­ing­ly," the min­is­ter warned. Mean­while, Mooni­lal said, HDC is al­so set to em­bark on an­oth­er dri­ve in which the Cor­po­ra­tion will be en­gag­ing with the pri­vate sec­tor to pro­vide ad­di­tion­al hous­ing.