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Tuesday, February 25, 2025

HDC seeks Cabinet approval to build cheaper homes

by

Akash Samaroo
845 days ago
20221102

The Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) will be seek­ing Cab­i­net’s ap­proval to build sim­pler homes so that it can change the cost of its units, thus re­duc­ing the sub­sidy cur­rent­ly en­joyed by the pub­lic.

The HDC al­so in­tends to end an arrange­ment where it foots the util­i­ty bills for over 5,000 of its ten­ants.

The ma­jor an­nounce­ments were made dur­ing a Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (PAAC) meet­ing yes­ter­day.

HDC man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Jay­selle Mc Far­lane told the PAAC that some of its cus­tomers cur­rent­ly ben­e­fit from what was called the “60/40 split.”

Un­der the Sub­si­dies head­ing on the HDC’s web­site, it in­di­cates that cur­rent­ly, HDC cus­tomers pay an av­er­age of 60 per cent of the cost of a unit while the oth­er 40 per cent is ab­sorbed by the State.

“The Cab­i­net-ap­proved pric­ing pol­i­cy was such where the Gov­ern­ment would ab­sorb the cost of the land and the cost of the in­fra­struc­ture and the ap­pli­cant will pay the cost of the con­struc­tion,” com­mit­tee mem­ber Ran­dall Mitchell, who is a for­mer Hous­ing Min­is­ter, ex­plained to his col­leagues on the com­mit­tee.

How­ev­er, Mac­Far­lane said that agree­ment will come to an end soon.

“The HDC’s board has ap­proved a pric­ing pol­i­cy, it’s a strate­gic mea­sure of the board to keep the prices down and to im­ple­ment sub­si­dies that can be af­ford­ed by the Gov­ern­ment, with a max­i­mum sub­sidy of 25 per cent,” Mc Far­lane ex­plained while re­veal­ing that the board’s rec­om­men­da­tion is cur­rent­ly be­fore Cab­i­net.

This will al­so ap­ply to rental prop­er­ties.

HDC chair­man Noel Gar­cia said price in­creas­es on the glob­al mar­ket were forc­ing their hand.

“In­fla­tion­ary pres­sures and a num­ber of oth­er is­sues such as COVID, with the sup­ply chain lo­gis­tics, are all con­tribut­ing to an up­ward trend in prices that has dis­tort­ed the 60/40 split.”

The an­nounce­ment of the sub­sidy cap then prompt­ed Min­is­ter Mitchell to ask, “Hav­ing re­gard to the in­fla­tion­ary pres­sures now be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced, is it the HDC’s po­si­tion that they are now go­ing to re­for­mu­late the pric­ing pol­i­cy through Cab­i­net or are they go­ing to seek ways to re­duce the cost of the con­struc­tion of the units?”

Gar­cia said the an­swer was yes, to both.

“It is the in­ten­tion of the board to ap­proach the Min­is­ter (Hous­ing) to take a note to Cab­i­net with re­spect to the pric­ing pol­i­cy, the sec­ond part of it is that the HDC is seek­ing ways to bring down the cost of con­struc­tion to re­al­ly go back to the old days where we pro­vid­ed a very ba­sic house which al­lowed peo­ple, as time goes on, to out­fit their house in a man­ner that they wish, that would re­duce costs sig­nif­i­cant­ly.”

Ear­li­er dur­ing the meet­ing, it was re­vealed that the HDC’s Hous­ing Con­struc­tion In­cen­tive Pro­gramme (HCIP), which in­cen­tivis­es the pri­vate sec­tor to build low-cost hous­ing, did not at­tract the in­vest­ment it had hoped for.

“A to­tal of 134 pack­ages were sold, re­sult­ing in 38 con­trac­tors reg­is­ter­ing, in to­tal thus far un­der the HCIP, 55 units were built,” said di­vi­sion­al man­ag­er Vi­dale Ram­roops­ingh.

The HCIP was rolled out in 2017.

Mean­while, the HDC is look­ing to end its arrange­ment with most of their tra­di­tion­al renters who ben­e­fit from hav­ing their wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty bills cov­ered by the cor­po­ra­tion.

This an­nounce­ment was news for some on the com­mit­tee, in par­tic­u­lar its chair Bridgid Anisette-George, who was un­aware this was a func­tion of the cor­po­ra­tion.

Mc Far­lane ex­plained that those ten­ants are most­ly in Port-of-Spain, where rent is $100 a month.

“We are cur­rent­ly re­view­ing this ex­er­cise in an ef­fort, in some in­stances, to re­move this pro­vi­sion by the HDC.”

She could not pro­vide an ex­act cost to the State but said that the elec­tric­i­ty bill for those renters could be around $10,000. How­ev­er, the chair did al­low her to sub­mit the ex­act fig­ures in writ­ing at a lat­er date.

Mc Far­lane was probed by com­mit­tee mem­ber Wade Mark on how many ben­e­fit­ed from this cov­er­age and where ex­act­ly they are lo­cat­ed.

“About 5,454 are tra­di­tion­al renters. They are in ar­eas such as Dun­can Street, Nel­son Street and Beetham,” Mc Far­lane re­spond­ed.

She al­so re­vealed that those very renters owe the HDC around $47m in ar­rears.


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