East Coast Demerara is the new hotspot for house-lot allocations
With the lands available for residential purposes along the East Bank Demerara almost depleted, the East Coast Demerara is now the new hotspot for the Ministry of Housing’s land allocation exercises within Region 4.
Minister of Housing and Water Colin Coral on Wednesday confirmed that allocations being done at the moment are on the East Coast Demerara. For the year 2023, (7,128) house lot allocations were done and of that number, the majority have been allocated along the East Coast Demerara.
It was noted that most of the lands issued between 2020 to 2023 that made up the 30,000-odd for that period, were given to persons within the low-income bracket, benefiting poor families who wanted to own homes.
According to Minister Coral, in the process and along the way, the Ministry is also tackling the issue of squatting. He has indicated that when he took office in 2020, there were twenty-nine listed unregularised settlements. Of that number, thirteen were addressed and regularised and for the year 2024, the Ministry is looking to address an additional eight areas which they hope to regularise.
At the moment, the Ministry has a massive infrastructural drive taking place within areas identified for housing on the East Coast Demerara where utilities are being put in place, that is to say, water electricity telephone.
It was made clear that the Ministry and by extension, the government will not be regularising any additional squatting settlements outside of the inherited 29 which the government has been working with since 2020. The Housing Minister is calling on persons who desire to own a government house lot, to visit the ministry’s Brickdam or Regional Offices and make their applications.
Persons who fall within the 29 regularised areas the government has been working on have all been engaged with the ministry and their information collected and added to the database which adds them to the waiting list.
By the end of 2024, the Ministry is expected to move into their new headquarters which will see the Ministry of Housing and the Guyana Water Inc. headquarters will be located side by side.
