By Zena Henry

THE Central Housing and Planning Authority (CHPA) is in the process of repossessing lands from private developers who are in arrears of fees and have failed to honour their agreement of sale with the agency.
The Housing Authority has also forwarded many of those agreements to the Attorney General’s office in cases where irregularities were discovered and where legal consideration is being sought before engaging the defaulting party.

This information was related Monday when the Housing arm of the Ministry of Communities held its mid-year report on the performance of the sector. Housing’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Lelon Saul, told the media that the authority is currently engaging some contractors, while instructions have been given to commence the repossession process relating to defaulting developers. “I would have instructed our corporate secretary to initiate action in some cases to repossess land from private developers who failed to deliver,” Saul asserted when questioned by the media.

Additionally, the authority’s Corporate Secretary, Hannifah Jordan, explained that in reviewing the agreements made between the previous government and private developers, they related to the batch of agreements made in 2010- 2011 and then 2013 and beyond. It was recognised, she stated, that there were issues relating to the strengthening of agreements which had to be taken into consideration with future agreements to include penalties and conditions to regulate defaulting developers.

In relation to the comprehensive review of those agreements, Jordan said that “…we (CHPA Board)… would have sent the agreements to the Attorney General for his review and we are awaiting that answer.” On the other hand, housing officials also related that citizens were found cheating the system in that they or their spouse would have already had property received from the authority, but applied and received another. These persons would have slipped through the cracks or used alternate names such as their married title to receive another property.

There are cases where the authority has moved to repossess these properties, the officials stated, although no figure was offered. Where persons would have received property from Housing, but have failed to develop it, Saul told the media, that many of those empty lots are titled land with legal ramifications for repossession. In relation to the private developers, he said however that many of them still owe the CHPA, and that makes it easier for the authority to seek redress, where developers fail to deliver.

In the meantime, much has been said about the inhospitable locations of some house lots that were previously delivered to citizens. No access facilities, poor roads, limited to no lighting, water and communication amenities were also great hindrances to persons even if they wanted to develop the property. Housing officials reminded that 16 new housing schemes are to be upgraded with such facilities. This was previously announced by Minister of State Joseph, Harmon, at an earlier Cabinet press briefing. Acting Projects Director, Omar Narine, told the media that preparations for consolidation works in existing housing schemes are moving along with road upgrades, and other facilities in areas such as Perseverance, EBD, where 178 new lots are to be established, Berbice, Tuschen, Non-Pariel and Ameila’s Ward among others. Moves toward national procurement, identification of contractors among other preparatory work is ongoing.