President Ali reveals 7,000 house lots for Region Three residents

Essequibo Island- West Demerara (Region Three), will see some 7,000 house lots being developed, as part of government’s drive to provide 50,000 house lots to Guyanese by the year 2025.

While conducting a walkthrough of the new West Central Mall under construction at Leonora, West Coast Demerara, President Irfaan Ali noted that the first phase of the project was awarded and infrastructural works have commenced. “If you look at what is known as ‘punt trench’ or where the high bridge is, all the way back and all the way to the tower all of those lands will be converted into housing…as you can see there the excavators are working,” Ali explained while pointing to the area that is being developed.

The President stressed that this new housing development, will take place in the vicinity of the planned thoroughfare from Schoonord to Parika. The Head of State said that owning to the rapid pace of development in the Essequibo Island West Demerara region, he also spoke of the development of a commercial district in Leonora along with a professional residential area.

“So that give you a bearing on what is going to occur here in the terms of development… “Every single area in the country we are developing these growth hubs, to span out development, to expand the development reach,” Ali said. The President pointed out that the development of lands in the region will help to address the backlog of 14,000 applications for Region Three, currently sitting in the database of the Housing Ministry’s Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) awaiting allocation.

“In this NDC [Stewartville/Cornelia Ida] alone, we are talking about the development in this area here alone, about 1500 acres of land. 1500 acres of land would give us here and there, 7000 new house lots,” he had explained during a prior engagement. President Ali revealed that the infrastructure costs on average, to develop 1500 acres of land is close to $10B.

“…and this is not ten years from now, these are projects that are in the immediate pipeline, projects that have already started,” he pointed out.”  Ali continued, “in the medium term, if you have an occupancy of 50% in five to seven years, then convert 3500 [50% of 7000] by an average of $7M and you will see the volume of transaction that we’re talking about just in this locality.”

Additionally, it was noted that under the Government’s turn-key initiative, some 200 housing units are expected to be constructed in Anna Catherina and Meten-Meer-Zorg targeting low- and moderate-income earners.

Further, under the IDB funded Authority’s Adequate Housing and Urban Accessibility Programme, 25 core homes were constructed for vulnerable families in Lust-en-Rust, Onderneeming, La Parfaite Harmonie, Recht-Door-Zee and Westminister. Ali added that these new developments, President Ali said, will be complemented by $52B (US$260M) New Demerara River Bridge.