31 De Endragt residents sign agreements of sale for land title
Some 31 residents of De Endragt, East Coast Demerara (ECD), are one step closer to achieving their long-awaited dreams of owning house lots as they signed their Agreement of Sale for their land titles on Saturday.
The initiative was spearheaded by Housing and Water Minister Collin Croal and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) Sherwyn Greaves.
According to the Housing and Water Ministry, all of these works are part of one centralized plan undertaken by the agency’s Community Development Department.
“This activity is part of a regularization exercise for Plantation De Endragt (Mon Repos North), which is being facilitated by the agency’s Community Development Department. This exercise is also reflective of the agency’s fulfilment of President Ali’s mandate to issue ownership documents to unregularized areas.”
Historically, the Mon Repos North area was identified as swamp land unsuitable for housing. In the early 1970s, it was reported that persons started to make shacks to facilitate their businesses since the area was used as a main “port” for contraband.
Officials of the Housing and Water Ministry doing additional land analysis
In 1992, this trade became uneconomical since the PPP Government removed the ban on basic/essential food items. People continued to occupy the area and improve their structures to make it livable.
Regularization of the area commenced in 2010 when CH&PA conducted a Block and Occupation survey.
In addition, staff of the Community Development Department and the Surveys Unit conducted verification exercises in the area.
Which showed that there are 67 lots on plan, another 67 lots that are presently occupied, 44 lots verified for allocation and processing of titles, four lots to be transferred from the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL), three abandoned structures, 10 lots where owners are deceased and five lots belonged to persons living overseas.
Then there are the 31 persons who signed the Agreement of Sale, and 1 non-residential use (Church).
Titles were not processed for the area since the transfer of ownership of land was incomplete. CH&PA is now in a position to process Titles with the ownership being finalized.
