Government is looking to sell off some of its prime spots of land in order to get much needed cash, says Minister of Housing and Lands Denis Kellman.
He was speaking last Friday in the House of Assembly on a resolution to approve the compulsory acquisition of land at Sturges and Welches, St Thomas, to facilitate the Harrison’s Cave Redevelopment Project and for public access to the cave.
The St Lucy MP, who also called for the creation of a land bank, said the impression had been created that all the deficits at the National Housing Corporation (NHC) occurred after 2008 when the Democratic Labour Party was elected to office.
In this connection, he told the House that the NHC was always recording deficits because of joint ventures that had not been in the interest of the agency.
“We are looking to see how we can use our lands and how we can create cash flow as quickly as possible because we need to sell the houses as quickly as possible . . . and we also need to get some house lots in the hands of people,” said Kellman.
He explained that the Government between 2008 and 2013 used housing as an economic stimulus.
Stimulus
“We used housing as a stimulus because we wanted money in the economy to help to fight what was going on in the world and we had to invite private sector players to bring money to help us with the housing problems . . . .
“We took the money and tried to build up the other productive projects and there was nothing wrong. We have nothing to apologise for . . . . We have to understand they asked for a stimulus and we used housing and we also used road building,” Kellman told the Lower Chamber.
Now, instead of the NHC focusing only on low income housing, Kellman said, it was looking to “maximise the returns on our best pieces of land”.
“We have land at Colleton, we have land at Dean’s Town and some others that we will have to cherry-pick because we have to use the location to get an increase in revenue for NHC so that we can reduce the deficits we are now carrying and create cash flow to solve the problem.
“That is why we carefully chose Dean’s Town and Colleton in St Peter. . . . We understand that the land at Colleton was allocated to the low income [earners] and that is why we have asked the ministry officials to find another location so that we can be able to get those $5 lots to replace the ones we would have taken out of the pool,” Kellman revealed.
He also told the Lower Chamber that the private housing project at Constant, St George had restarted; that at River, St Philip work was also taking place, while the Parish Land, Christ Church project was awaiting final approval from the Environmental Protection Department.
The St Lucy MP said the only project which the NHC could have a guaranteed return on was at Coverley, Christ Church, adding that a lot of work had been done by the previous minister leaving him with much stock to clear. (AC)
