New housing developments in Barbados should be outfitted with renewable energy systems.
So said Senator Dr. Rommell Springer in the Upper House during Wednesday’s sitting, which debated a land acquisition resolution for housing and tourism development in Harrismith, St. Philip.
“Going forward, housing developments should have access to renewable energy. I see no reason why every house should not have photovoltaic panels on the house to offset its energy requirements. These are things that we can look at and while it may be costly up front, 10 to 20 years down the road it will pay itself off,” he added.
Furthermore, Springer said it is necessary to look at building these homes to withstand a Category Five hurricane, stating that while some believe this cannot be done, attempts have to be made to do so at a time when these systems are becoming a norm.
Giving his support to the resolution, he said that government has to continue to try to meet the demand for housing.
“For many years, it has been difficult for poor people to own a house in this country. Difficult to get a loan to buy land or get a mortgage. Sometimes, you see a house that is rotting and dilapidated and there may be two or three people living in it, and you wonder why they are not fixing it.
“It is because there is a lot of money needed to make repairs to a house. You cannot take up $3 000 or $4 000 in Barbados to repair a house, especially a board house, because as you remove one board you may find 10 rotten ones underneath, and then you find yourselves needing $10 000 and you don’t have that to pay up front. So you find some people staying in houses until these are falling down around them,” he stated.
(JMB)