Over the next three years, the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) will be shifting gears which will see more focus on the needs of low income households, tighter planning of settlements and greater enforcement to ensure conformity with land use permits.
In a statement last week, the CH&PA said in accordance with its statutory mandate, it will focus on low income earners who are eligible to benefit from the government housing initiatives.
“We recognize that emphasis was not geared towards persons and families of low or no affordability. A preliminary evaluation of the projects implemented in the last seven years revealed that most of the housing developments did not cater for the public needs of low income groups which can be substantiated by the many pending active applications of low-income earners, who have indicated their interest in acquiring shelter solutions.
“Government, through the agency, will undertake to provide a range of residential housing solutions that will be affordable, accessible and safe which will ultimately improve the living conditions and the quality of life of the beneficiaries. Such housing solutions would be crafted to ensure maximum efficiency and value for money,” the CH&PA asserted.
It said that the housing communities to be set up will be carefully planned, organized and implementation strategies that will be rolled out will see the participation of the potential residents upfront and all stakeholders in the planning and execution processes.
The CH&PA added that in keeping with the government’s vision of ‘the good life for all Guyanese’ emphasis will be placed on its planning function with respect to settlement development and land use control and management.
Under the Town and Country Planning Act, the CH&PA said it is required to prepare development schemes to guide all future development, including housing development and regulated land use through the planning permission process. It said that this mandatory forward planning function was “mostly overshadowed by the agency’s housing function which is to cater for the provision for housing for the working class.”
It said that the planning function therefore was limited mainly to the design and implementation stage. This, it said, has contributed to the development of settlements without an overall spatial development plan.
To redress this, the CH&PA will be hosting a forum to raise the level of awareness on a number of issues affecting its planning function.
At present, the CH&PA said it continues to work with other agencies in ensuring that unapproved structures and the unauthorized use of reserves are brought into compliance and conformity with regulations that govern land use development.
Going forward, the CH&PA said it will initiate and support the preparation of spatial development and land-use plans in collaboration with Local Democratic Organs and other key stakeholders as mandated under the Town and Country Planning Act and this will guide all future settlement development.
The CH&PA said it will also focus on existing communities outside of the Government of Guyana housing schemes, which would have not benefited from any structured development plans and which has resulted in incompatible land uses, noise nuisance and violations of building regulations.
The CH&PA said that in light of the limited resources and the need to make informed decisions, the continued investment in the existing housing areas will be informed by current data and financial information for each housing area.
“The CH&PA’s Board and Management concur that in order to successfully implement the Plan of Action, attention must be paid to the issue of current and comprehensive data. With respect to the CH&PA’s database, although data exist in the system, it is not comprehensive enough to provide the basis for key decisions as it relates to the future intervention within the existing housing areas,” the authority stated.
To address this information gap, the CH&PA said, a field exercise will be done during September-October 2016 to record the real situation in the field. Further, critical financial information will be gathered to provide the real financial status for each housing area.
The data collection exercise will also provide necessary data to inform policy review with respect to selection of beneficiaries to benefit from the government’s housing programme. Some important issues that would be addressed in the amended policy include: applicants’ preferences with respect to location and type of housing solutions; and rigour and stringency in the eligibility criteria to determine housing need instead of desire.
