HDC chairman: Govt relying on private housing stock to meet huge demand

KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) chair­man Feeroz Khan says the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to re­ly on pri­vate sec­tor hous­ing stock as it works to­wards de­liv­er­ing homes to cit­i­zens over the next five years.

Khan made the com­ment as he spoke briefly at the open­ing of Chef Pro Homes’ new show­room, which show­cas­es low-cost, con­tain­er-mod­i­fied hous­ing de­signed to ap­peal to mid­dle- and low-in­come earn­ers.

Khan said Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had made it clear that the HDC must de­liv­er 20,000 homes with­in the Gov­ern­ment’s five-year term, but he stressed that meet­ing na­tion­al hous­ing de­mand re­quires broad­er col­lab­o­ra­tion. He not­ed that hous­ing ex­tends be­yond phys­i­cal struc­tures, de­scrib­ing a home as the foun­da­tion of fam­i­lies and the build­ing block of so­ci­ety.

“The HDC will per­haps make a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to that num­ber, but we would not have ar­rived at that num­ber with­out the help and sup­port of peo­ple like Chef Pro Homes and oth­ers in the pri­vate sec­tor, who will be con­tribut­ing not just to build­ing hous­es but build­ing homes and fam­i­lies in Trinidad & To­ba­go.”

As vis­i­tors moved through the dis­play units, Chef Pro Group of Com­pa­nies di­rec­tor Aman­da Har­ry­lal said the com­pa­ny aims to sup­port na­tion­al hous­ing ef­forts by of­fer­ing ready-to-de­liv­er op­tions at price points ac­ces­si­ble to a wider cross-sec­tion of the pop­u­la­tion.

Har­ry­lal said the com­pa­ny re­mains open to part­ner­ship with the State, par­tic­u­lar­ly as af­ford­abil­i­ty con­tin­ues to ex­clude many fam­i­lies from the tra­di­tion­al hous­ing mar­ket.

Ex­plain­ing the ap­peal of con­tain­er-mod­i­fied homes, Har­ry­lal said the de­signs re­spond di­rect­ly to T&T’s cli­mate and eco­nom­ic re­al­i­ties. She said the units are steel-struc­tured, rust-re­sis­tant, in­su­lat­ed, and hur­ri­cane-re­sis­tant, with gable roofs that re­duce cor­ro­sion. Buy­ers can cus­tomise the homes, con­vert them in­to smart homes, or opt for off-grid so­lu­tions us­ing so­lar pow­er, mak­ing them suit­able for va­ca­tion prop­er­ties, beach hous­es, and ar­eas with­out elec­tric­i­ty. She said con­struc­tion firms al­ready use some units as site of­fices, while land­lords can ex­plore them as rental op­tions.

Har­ry­lal com­pared the con­tain­er units with con­ven­tion­al hous­ing, not­ing that a starter fam­i­ly home typ­i­cal­ly costs about $1.2 mil­lion, a fig­ure out of reach for min­i­mum-wage earn­ers and many sin­gle-in­come house­holds.

“But you can go to the bank and get a loan for $150,000 based on your salary. This ac­tu­al­ly be­came more ac­ces­si­ble to that per­son,”Har­ry­lal said.

She added, “So it is not just that what we brought here is a con­tain­er-type house and is af­ford­able, but rather a house that can make you feel at home. You can cus­tomise it to what you want at an af­ford­able price. We won’t dis­cuss a lot of pric­ing here, but you can get a two-to-three-bed­room fam­i­ly home for $149,995 and up, up to this unit we are stand­ing in, which is $399,000.”

Chef Pro Homes has al­ready record­ed strong de­mand, with a high­ly sub­scribed pre-or­der list sup­port­ed by bank fi­nanc­ing. From pre-or­der, homes can be de­liv­ered with­in three months, with buy­ers re­ceiv­ing spec­i­fi­ca­tions ear­ly to pre­pare foun­da­tions ahead of de­liv­ery. As­sem­bly, she said, can be com­plet­ed in as lit­tle as eight days.

“So, where­as you may have to look at fit­tings, tiles, and doors, you get every­thing in one. In three months’ time, you can just walk in­to your home. You do not have to wor­ry about clean-up, in­fra­struc­ture, or weath­er.”

The units can al­so be dis­man­tled and re­lo­cat­ed if nec­es­sary.

Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Gow­tam Ma­haraj en­cour­aged buy­ers to fo­cus on trans­form­ing the struc­tures in­to sta­ble fam­i­ly homes, say­ing the mod­el of­fers a fast and fi­nan­cial­ly vi­able start for many house­holds. He wel­comed the speed of con­struc­tion but cau­tioned that rapid as­sem­bly could al­so present chal­lenges, in­clud­ing unau­tho­rised oc­cu­pa­tion.

Ma­haraj said au­thor­i­ties will in­crease mon­i­tor­ing as de­vel­op­ment ex­pands across the re­gion, not­ing the pace of growth al­ready un­der­way.