KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Al­though the Gov­ern­ment is mov­ing to re­struc­ture the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC), Min­is­ter of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Camille Robin­son-Reg­is says there is no plan to re­trench em­ploy­ees.An­nounc­ing the plan at an HDC key dis­tri­b­u­tion cer­e­mo­ny at Carl­ton Place, San Fer­nan­do, yes­ter­day, Robin­son-Reg­is said she, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry Adri­an Leonce, Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Claire David­son-William and HDC man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Jay­selle Mc­Far­lane had held dis­cus­sions with the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion and Na­tion­al Union for Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers on the re­struc­tur­ing.

“Let me say that we do not in­tend for any job loss­es, if that was a con­cern,” Robin­son-Reg­is said.
She ex­plained that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley ex­pressed con­cerns about the HDC, as it ap­peared it was not ful­fill­ing its core man­date to pro­vide hous­ing units to its clien­tele while main­tain­ing its rental units and prop­er­ties to the sat­is­fac­tion of its ten­ants.
Row­ley tasked the min­istry, HDC and Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs with find­ing a vi­able so­lu­tion.

The HDC sub­se­quent­ly con­duct­ed an or­gan­i­sa­tion­al as­sess­ment which de­ter­mined that if it main­tained its cur­rent mode of op­er­a­tion, it would be un­sus­tain­able, de­pen­dent on the Gov­ern­ment for work­ing cap­i­tal and sad­dled with un­pro­duc­tive lega­cy debts.
Robin­son-Reg­is said fac­tors af­fect­ing ef­fec­tive­ness in­clud­ed its di­verse prod­ucts and ser­vice port­fo­lio, which over ex­tend­ed man­age­ment’s fo­cus and re­sources. There­fore, it re­duced in­no­va­tion and the de­vel­op­ment of ex­per­tise.

The oth­er is­sue was the HDC’s re­quire­ment to bal­ance the com­pet­ing fi­nan­cial de­mands of pro­vid­ing in­no­v­a­tive, high-qual­i­ty hous­ing to sat­is­fy the de­mand for af­ford­able hous­ing and main­tain­ing its com­mu­ni­ties with lim­it­ed State sub­ven­tion.
Robin­son-Reg­is said for HDC to thrive and ful­fil its man­date, it needs to re-en­gi­neer its iden­ti­ty, fi­nanc­ing mod­el and op­er­a­tional struc­ture. There­fore, the team pre­sent­ed Cab­i­net with a new HDC struc­ture fea­tur­ing the HDC as a hold­ing com­pa­ny with three sub­sidiaries.

The HDC Con­struc­tion Co Ltd will man­age prop­er­ty de­vel­op­ment, in­clud­ing land ac­qui­si­tion, ur­ban plan­ning and project and con­struc­tion man­age­ment. It will al­so pro­vide fi­nanc­ing so­lu­tions for projects.
The HDC Fa­cil­i­ties Es­tate Man­age­ment Co Ltd will han­dle prop­er­ty man­age­ment, in­clud­ing the main­te­nance of rental units and pro­vide ad­min­is­tra­tion for the man­age­ment com­pa­ny port­fo­lio. It will al­so part­ner with re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions and ex­ter­nal en­ti­ties for the up­keep of com­mu­ni­ties.
And fi­nal­ly, the HDC As­set Man­age­ment Co Ltd will be re­spon­si­ble for com­plet­ing the sale of the fin­ished hous­ing units and pro­vid­ing ad­min­is­tra­tive sup­port for hous­ing de­vel­op­ments un­der its purview un­til they are hand­ed over to pur­chasers.

“Every oth­er day, we see a news­pa­per ar­ti­cle or a tele­vi­sion sto­ry about the HDC. We want to en­sure that af­ter this, there is a change in how peo­ple per­ceive the HDC be­cause ours is the man­date to en­sure that our clien­tele is sat­is­fied with what the HDC pro­duces,” Robin­son-Reg­is said.

The HDC be­lieves the struc­ture will en­sure greater fi­nan­cial flex­i­bil­i­ty and the abil­i­ty to mon­e­tise HDC as­sets that can­not be in their cur­rent form. It should al­so im­prove gov­er­nance through ac­count­abil­i­ty, re­duce cor­po­rate risk, es­tab­lish a good brand rep­u­ta­tion and de­vel­op pub­lic con­fi­dence in the HDC.
The Gov­ern­ment al­so plans to com­plete de­vel­op­ments start­ed years ago in the next fis­cal year. This in­cludes the con­tro­ver­sial Ed­in­burgh Tow­ers in Ch­agua­nas, which be­gan in 2006 at a $140 mil­lion cost. How­ev­er, it stalled in 2011 due to de­sign flaws and miss­ing ap­provals.

Robin­son-Reg­is said when com­plet­ed, the month­ly rental cost for a two-bed­room apart­ment will be an es­ti­mat­ed $850 and $950 for a three-bed­room apart­ment.
“These prices are un­heard-of in the open mar­ket but we are sure it caters to a sig­nif­i­cant pool of HDC clients.”
There will al­so be rentals in Oa­sis Phase 5, Todd Street and Cy­press Hills. HDC will of­fer sim­i­lar op­tions at Al­mond Courts, Trou Macaque and the Beetham Project Phase Four de­vel­op­ments.
The HDC al­so yes­ter­day pre­sent­ed keys to 60 re­cip­i­ents for units in Carl­ton Place, Re­al Springs, Vieux Fort, Buen In­ten­to, Carlsen Fields, Har­mo­ny Hall, River­side South and Lake View.

Leonce said the HDC could col­lect ap­prox­i­mate­ly $38 mil­lion from yes­ter­day’s dis­tri­b­u­tions when cus­tomers close mort­gages on their prop­er­ties. He said since 2015, HDC had al­lo­cat­ed over 6,000 units, with an­oth­er 300 up for dis­tri­b­u­tion be­tween to­day and Christ­mas.
“It means a cor­re­lat­ed num­ber of fam­i­lies will be liv­ing their dream of home own­er­ship by Christ­mas,” Leonce said.