– as CH&PA continues to tackle nationwide squatting
THE Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA), as part of its continued efforts to stomp out squatting, has regularised some 1,008 house lots, and issued 300 land titles in 2019.
This was according to Director for Community Development Gladwin Charles during his remarks at the Authority’s end-of-year press conference on Monday.
Charles said the Authority will continue to work towards regularising areas where squatting is prevalent, and has already started to examine 173 squatting areas across the country. Those areas are located in every administrative region except Regions One (Barima-Waini); Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni); and Eight (Potaro-Siparuni).
Charles said the Authority has completed 159 surveys so far, and the remaining set are ongoing and should be completed in the first quarter of 2020.
“The block surveys are complete, and we are working with the legal department to transfer ownership of the land to CH&PA… When the regularisation is complete, the Authority will have 24,000 lots,” Charles said. Of all the areas surveyed, the Authority has regularised about 85 per cent of 24,000 lots.
There are about 5,549 lots in the Sophia area alone, and of those lots, the Authority has regularised 85 per cent and distributed titles to about 75 per cent of the squatters. Charles said more attention will be placed on the Sophia area going into the New Year.
Going into the New Year, the CH&PA will also be moving the displaced Broad and Lombard Streets squatters to 20 newly-built houses at Prospect on the East Bank of Demerara. The houses were constructed by Food for the Poor Guyana.
“The squatters will officially be moved to the new houses by the first week in January; the houses are almost complete,” Charles said.
The relocation project was implemented after a fire had erupted and destroyed necessities such as the household appliances and livestock of the residents, in March, 2019.
Also, the owners of the plot of land on Broad Street filed a lawsuit against the occupants and won, forcing them to vacate the land they had occupied for about 40 years.
It was announced that 20 families would be relocated to Prospect and $19 million will be spent for construction of the houses; Food for the Poor also injected $12 million into the development of the project.
The relocation programme will be completed in two phases, with Phase One being the construction of 20 houses for 20 families at the Prospect Housing Scheme. In Phase Two, a total of 31 families will be relocated to Cummings Lodge on the lower East Coast of Demerara.
Meanwhile, early this month, it was reported that CH&PA is working on a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the UN-Habitat’s Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme to create an inventory and assess the extent of squatting in Guyana. This was according to CH&PA, Deputy Director of Community Development, Donell Bess-Basco.
“There was an inventory done some time ago but it has to be updated; we need to know where these persons are squatting and who the owners of the lands are. This initiative will feed into settlement regularisation plans for Guyana and relocation because it is difficult for us to talk about squatting and not consider the issue of relocation,” Bess-Bascom said.
The deputy director added that some squatting areas would be regularised and converted into housing schemes while others such as Plastic City behind Vreed-en-Hoop, need to be relocated.
