HOUSING development has seen unprecedented growth over the last four years across Guyana.
With a target to distribute 50,000 house lots to Guyanese, the Ministry of Housing and Water has continued to spare no effort in developing new housing areas and building homes to ensure this goal is met.

Minister within the Ministry of Housing and Water, Susan Rodrigues, recently highlighted that from August 2020 to present, there have been a total of 67 new housing areas developed across all regions.
She regarded this as a historic investment in the housing sector.

Minister Rodrigues said that during the International Building Expo, persons were allocated lots in Regions Three and Four.
For Region Three, one of the newest areas is at Wales where infrastructural works have already begun. Thousands of persons will be allocated lands there. In Region Four the ministry is continuing allocations along the East Coast of Demerara in areas such as Lusignan, Enterprise and Non Pareil.

“We keep extending these areas and going further [sic] and further [sic] at the back that will eventually somewhere along the way join the East Bank,” the minister expressed.

She continued to say that the transformation that is taking place, especially along the East Coast, is a phenomenal one to witness.
Minister Rodrigues indicated, “It is an ongoing effort to always identify land or housing, because we know we have competing interest for land. We have to make lands available for GuySuCo, for agriculture, for farming, and we have to make land available for our housing programme.

“So, we’re in constant negotiation with NICIL or GuySuCo or Lands and Surveys for lands for housing development. The President also spoke about Silica City and that’s one of our new areas in Region Four as well,” she shared. Already, construction has commenced on the first 100 homes at Silica City, which is located on the Soesdyke-Linden Highway.

Elaborating on the development of housing areas, Minister Rodrigues said that in each new area, as part of the design, they always leave a lot for the construction of units.
Another area that was highlighted by the minister was that of gated communities.

Though there are not many, and although the ministry does not develop gated communities, they have allocated lands in the past for these types of communities.
Most recently, they allocated lands to private developers for the establishment of gated communities.

She related that these developers are solely responsible for the infrastructural development of gated communities.
“So, there is no public spending in that regard. We allocate the land, they have to pay the ministry for the land, [and] that is not subsidised either,” Minister Rodrigues added. (Faith Greene)