Robinson-Regis, Lee clash over HDC purge of Caura clients

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion MP Camille Robin­son-Reg­is says peo­ple who met the cri­te­ria for Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) town­hous­es in Cau­ra, Tu­na­puna, and were as­sured they would get units, are now be­ing re­moved—but Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee has coun­tered that the past Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment gov­ern­ment was giv­ing those units to “friends, fam­i­ly and fi­nanciers.”

Both squared off on the is­sue in the Low­er House yes­ter­day, when Robin­son-Reg­is al­so called for eq­ui­ty and for HDC home­own­ers to be treat­ed sim­i­lar­ly to Ca­roni land re­cip­i­ents, who don’t have a large “in­her­i­tance tax” on prop­er­ty sale trans­fer.

Robin­son-Reg­is and Lee were par­tic­i­pat­ing in de­bate on a Land Ac­qui­si­tion or­der to vest 100 acres of Cau­ra land in the state for an HDC hous­ing de­vel­op­ment. Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein said the PNM gov­ern­ment had failed to do the or­der.

Robin­son-Reg­is re­vealed that peo­ple who met the cri­te­ria for the Cau­ra units at the time, had been in­ter­viewed, as­sessed and giv­en an as­sur­ance they would be get­ting spe­cif­ic units.

She added, “Now, my in­for­ma­tion is that every one of those per­sons has been re­moved af­ter be­ing as­sessed and as­sured they would be the per­sons to oc­cu­py the Cau­ra de­vel­op­ment. Gov­er­nance UNC style!”

She al­so said that where­as the HDC units were to each cost $950,000 and $1.1 mil­lion for those in­side and out­side the de­vel­op­ment, her in­for­ma­tion was that the homes are now cost­ing $1.5m and $1.7m. She al­so claimed the Ed­in­burgh Tow­ers is go­ing to be used as the HDC’s head of­fice and units in Ch­agua­nas ar­eas that were $575,000, are now $750,000.

The for­mer Hous­ing min­is­ter said the UNC Gov­ern­ment’s al­lo­ca­tion of deeds for 600 Ca­roni work­ers was painful for HDC home­own­ers, as there’s now a 10-year re­stric­tion on the sale/trans­fer of HDC prop­er­ty. She said the PNM gov­ern­ment had re­moved such a re­stric­tion from Ca­roni work­ers on their land is­sue.

“The PNM’s pol­i­cy was that peo­ple could have HDC hous­es they could pass on to rel­a­tives. Ca­roni work­ers can now sell the land im­me­di­ate­ly if they wish and the trans­fer fee is min­i­mal. Why the dif­fer­ence with HDC home­own­ers? Apart from be­ing 10 years, it’s re­quired to pay five to ten per cent of the pur­chase price to trans­fer—an ‘In­her­i­tance tax’ on HDC home­own­ers!” Robin­son-Reg­is added.

“Why can’t HDC home­own­ers get the same ben­e­fit as Ca­roni work­ers, who are be­ing trust­ed with their as­sets, but HDC home­own­ers seem to be pe­nalised. All we want is eq­ui­ty for HDC home­own­ers. But we’re see­ing pol­i­cy by vaps: the three Hous­ing min­is­ters don’t know what’s go­ing on in their own min­istry,” she said.

Robin­son-Reg­is said the PNM sup­port­ed the Land Ac­qui­si­tion or­der. She said the past gov­ern­ment was pre­vent­ed from mov­ing for­ward with the mat­ter since that was Home Con­struc­tion Lim­it­ed (HCL) land and there was a dif­fer­ence be­tween what HCL want­ed for com­pen­sa­tion and what the Val­u­a­tions Com­mis­sion­er stat­ed the land was worth.

Lee, say­ing Robin­son-Reg­is was talk­ing “pure non­sense,” said he was ful­ly aware of what is go­ing on in HDC.

“(The PNM) were al­lo­cat­ing those (Cau­ra) town­hous­es to their friends and fam­i­ly,” Lee claimed.

He said the PNM nev­er prop­er­ly vest­ed lands to HDC.

“That al­lowed them to be able to give their friends, fam­i­ly and fi­nanciers homes on a lease-to-own or rent-to-own arrange­ment. They would have giv­en friends and fam­i­ly favouritism of get­ting homes in these de­vel­op­ments at pep­per­corn rental rates with the no­tion that at some time they’d change that rent/lease to own arrange­ment to mort­gages. That’s why we have so many prob­lems at HDC, we have a bil­lion-dol­lar rent re­ceiv­able that’s un­col­lectible,” Lee said.

Dis­miss­ing Robin­son-Reg­is claim on in­creased costs for Cau­ra units, Lee said he had in­for­ma­tion that she called cer­tain peo­ple at the HDC for in­for­ma­tion.

“Who­ev­er you called, they’re set­ting you up, be­cause we haven’t changed the prices of these town­hous­es. They’re still $950,000 for the in­ner units and $1.7 mil­lion for the out­er ones.”

Lee didn’t re­ply on the “in­her­i­tance tax.”

He said soon word would be giv­en on de­sign/build/fi­nanc­ing of homes and “we’ll tell this PNM Gov­ern­ment ... this PNM Op­po­si­tion that they built 3,400 hous­es in 10 years and we’ll sur­pass that.”