Barbadians have long been crying out for housing and a Government official is adamant that the local landscape can meet most if not all of those needs, without taking anymore agricultural land out of production.
Chief Town Planner (CTP), Mark Cummins, has disclosed that there are almost 23 000 vacant residential lots in this country, and based on the 2010 Population and Housing Census 14 per cent of the 91 000-strong housing stock is either derelict or unoccupied.
“When you take the number of vacant lots and then you take the over 10 000 houses that are either derelict or vacant; some could be in transition if they are being rented, so let’s say that represents 50 per cent, we would still have 5 000 to 6 000 within the housing stock in Barbados which are derelict or unoccupied, which can provide much needed housing solutions,” he said in an interview with The Barbados Advocate.
Cummins added, “The other critical thing is those houses are all in areas where the services are already available, developers or the Government in some instances, would have provided the necessary infrastructure to serve those houses which are now vacant. So what we have said is rather than converting agricultural land, try to put a programme in place to bring some of those derelict and unoccupied buildings back into use to provide housing solutions.”
Meanwhile, the CTP said they appreciate that the close to 23 000 vacant lots are owned by numerous persons, but primarily Barbadians living abroad, and he said it is imperative that those landowners are encouraged to allow a large percentage of those lots back on the market, to also help address the housing challenge.
“What we have also done, is we have gone in and put in electricity, we have put in water. We’ve asked the Barbados Water Authority to run its distribution system through all of these areas because if John decides tomorrow, or Jane that he or she wants to build a house, they are supposed to go to the Water Authority, produce a plan, pay $400 and they have a water connection. Now John or Jane may not do that for 15 years, but Water Authority still has to make sure water is in those lines. Think of that water not having to be in those lines, but being in another place for use,” the Town and Country Planning official stated.
Questioned then as to whether he anticipates seeing more applications for high-rise housing solutions as opposed to single dwelling houses going forward to meet the housing demand, given the country’s limited land mass, the CTP said it is possible and indeed necessary, but he noted that the current uptake of the high-rise option has been slow. Cummins revealed that the Physical Development Plan currently in use makes provision for residential high-rise development, but said regrettably only the State-owned National Housing Corporation has made use of it.
“So we have Valerie, we have Grotto and there are some others they have on stream. The private sector argues that Barbadians do not like to live in that type of environment, where a person may live on a sixth, or seventh or eighth floor. In my view it will definitely have to change, particularly in the urban corridor because 66 per cent of us live in the urban corridor. So we will see private sector entities utilise that form of vertical development because of the restrictions of horizontal development, in that they will no longer be able to convert large tracts of agricultural land,” he said. (JRT)