The Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) is this week set to wrap up remedial works on turn-key homes that were provided by the former government to homeowners at Perseverance, East Bank Demerara.
During a media tour to the Perseverance Housing Development on Monday, CH&PA Project Manager Kennard Dazzel said that millions of dollars were spent to fix major and minor defects to turn-key homes that were constructed by the former government. According to Dazzel, the remedial works, which started last year September, are expected to be completed at the end of the week.
Dazzel noted that some of the defects included cracks in buildings, plumbing problems and ceiling issues, which all had to be fixed. He said that home owners who have since moved out of the defective homes have slowly started to return since the CH&PA started the repairs. “The level of occupancy has been rising every day. We have two, three persons moving in so, again over the next few weeks I would like to see the area populated with persons coming back,” he said.
Dazzel explained that on average they spent $400,000 on remedial works per building.
The Perseverance housing project, which was a part of the former PPP/C government’s 1,000 turn-key home initiative, saw prospective homeowners pay $4.9 million for the house and lot. According to Dazzel, the homeowners won’t have to pay the cost of the remedial works and those who are still interested in the houses would still pay the initial asking price.
Last year, veteran engineer and CH&PA board member Bert Carter had explained that of 200 core homes in the Perseverance, East Bank of Demerara New Housing Scheme, 59 were completed but only 45 of those were occupied.
He said that while there had been complaints from nearly all of the homeowners in occupancy, there were 13 homes in particular where serious corrective works had to be undertaken.
