67 housing developments established countrywide within 4 years

Within four years of coming into office, Government, through the Housing and Water Ministry, has developed a total of 67 new housing schemes across the country.
This is according to Minister within the Ministry of Housing and Water, Susan Rodrigues, who, during a recent appearance on the Guyana Dialogue, provided an update on progress made within the housing sector, and highlighted that from August 2020 to the current time, 67 new housing areas have been created across the country.
“From August 2020, when we came back into office, to now totals 67. So, 67 new housing areas have been created in the past four years. That (is) spread across the country, all of the regions. It’s a historic investment in the housing sector, and one that we are tremendously proud of,” she stated.
This remarkable achievement, she explained, is a direct result of the Government’s housing drive, which aims to provide a total of 50,000 house lots to Guyanese citizens by 2025.
Moreover, she revealed that during this year’s Building Expo, new housing developments were revealed for Regions Three (Essequibo Islands – West Demerara) and Four (Demerara-Mahaica).
“The two regions that were allocated during the Expo was Region 3 and some areas in Region 4. So, for Region 3, which is one of the newest areas, it’s at Wales. So, we have started our infrastructure work there, and there’s going to be thousands of people that will be allocated lands.
“And in Region 4, we continued our allocations on the East Coast in several areas, like Enterprise… We keep extending these areas and going further and further at the back. That will eventually, somewhere along the way, join with the East Bank” she stated.
The minister also spoke about the availability of land to develop new housing areas currently being somewhat of a challenge, noting that with Guyana’s rapidly growing agriculture sector, large sections of land are also being allocated for agriculture.
“And so we continue to work on new housing areas; it is an ongoing effort to always identify land for housing, because we have competing interests for land. We have to make lands available for GuySuCo, for agriculture, for farming; and we have to make land available for our housing programme. And so we’re in constant negotiation with NICIL or GuySuCo or Lands and Surveys for lands for housing development,” she revealed.
The minister noted that Government would continue to develop new areas, as more Guyanese are pushing to become home owners, due to various factors such as the high cost of rent as well as improved access to financing for citizens.
“We have seen a tremendous increase in the amount of people who are very eager to build, and I think two things are really pushing them. One is the high cost of rent as a natural cost of our economic activity, and so people are finding it more affordable now to build a home.
“And the second reason is the ease of access to financing. We have worked with the banks to reduce interest rates to 3.5 per cent,” she said.
Meanwhile from these new housing areas, over 36,000 house lots have been allocated to date. And additionally, outside of these areas, lands have been allocated for the development of private gated communities.