7,000 house lots for Region Three residents – Pres. Ali

President Irfaan Ali while conducting a walkthrough of the new West Central Mall under construction at Leonora, West Coast Demerara said the first phase of the project was awarded and infrastructural works have commenced.

“If you look at what is known as ‘punt trench’ or where the high bridge is, all the way back and all the way to the tower all of those lands will be converted into housing…as you can see there the excavators are working,” President Ali explained while pointing to the area that is being developed.

This new housing development, the head of state said, will take place in the vicinity of the planned thoroughfare from Schoonord to Parika.

Owning to the rapid pace of development in the Essequibo Island West Demerara region, the president also spoke of the development of a commercial district in Leonora along with a professional residential area.

“So that give you a bearing on what is going to occur here in the terms of development… “Every single area in the country we are developing these growth hubs, to span out development, to expand the development reach.”

The development of lands in the region will help to address the backlog of 14,000 applications for Region Three, currently sitting in the database of the Housing Ministry’s Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) awaiting allocation.

“In this NDC [Stewartville/Cornelia Ida] alone, we are talking about the development in this area here alone, about 1500 acres of land. 1500 acres of land would give us here and there, 7000 new house lots,” President Ali had explained during a prior engagement.

The infrastructure costs on average, to develop 1500 acres of land is close to $10 billion, president Ali stated.

“…and this is not ten years from now, these are projects that are in the immediate pipeline, projects that have already started,” he pointed out.”

He added, “in the medium term, if you have an occupancy of 50% in five to seven years, then convert 3500 [50% of 7000] by an average of $7 million and you will see the volume of transaction that we’re talking about just in this locality.”

Additionally, under the Government’s turn-key initiative, some 200 housing units are expected to be constructed in Anna Catherina and Meten-Meer-Zorg targeting low- and moderate-income earners.

Further, under the IDB funded Authority’s Adequate Housing and Urban Accessibility Programme, 25 core homes were constructed for vulnerable families in Lust-en-Rust, Onderneeming, La Parfaite Harmonie, Recht-Door-Zee and Westminister. These new developments, President Ali said, will be complemented by $52 billion (US$260 million) New Demerara River Bridge (Extracted from DPI)