By Hubert A. Ingraham, Prime Minister
Thursday 24 November, 2011
Today, we meet to develop this publicly-owned land into a housing subdivision.
There is a critical unmet and overwhelmingly urgent need for affordable, safe housing. Lots in this subdivision will be sold to Bahamians.
Some will recall that in the 2007 Speech from the Throne, my Government pledged that “the construction of 600 affordable homes will be facilitated by providing either fully serviced lots or newly constructed houses”. While the Ministry of Housing is on target to exceed this goal, having already constructed 470 houses and sold 237 serviced lots in this current term, with an additional 180 houses now under construction in New Providence, Grand Bahama and in Abaco, there remains more, much more to be done in assisting Bahamians to own their own homes.
But we have made an impressive start since May, 2007. Since that time 84 dwellings have been constructed in Ardastra Estate and its two Extensions; 47 new houses were built in Dignity Gardens; 114 in Pride Estates and its Additions and another 13 in Yellow Elder here in New Providence.
In Abaco, 113 houses were constructed in Spring City; and in Grand Bahama 58 houses were constructed in Wellington Pinder Heights, 21 in Sunset Subdivision Freeport, 12 in Heritage Community and 16 in Frobisher Circle.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
This groundbreaking represents a part of our housing initiative. Development costs on this 7.97 acre plot into 53 lots will amount to some $3.9 million.
This land was first leased from the Government in 1954. In recent years it was occupied by scores of persons and became known as “Mackey Yard”. And then there was a fire – thankfully, no lives were lost.
I thank Minister Foulkes, the Department of Social Services, the Members of the Clergy and other concerned private sector organizations and individuals, who were the first responders following the fire. There generosity with their time and resources brought much needed relief to the victims of the fire, and sped up their re-settlement.
And I thank the Ministry of Public Works & Transport, and the Department of Lands & Surveys, private surveyors and contractors for surveying, clearing and securing this site, following the fire. You will see from the photographs displayed here, that the task in developing this site has not been easy.
Like Mackey Yard, other parcels of Government-owned land in this area have been occupied by both Bahamians and non-Bahamians. We are systematically moving to reclaim these publicly owned lands. We will take due account of construction that has been undertaken on them and occupation thereon.
The reality is that in some instances, Mackey Yard and others being exceptions, Governments have not been as responsive as circumstances require for people to access and receive titles to publicly held lands.
We have had to undertake massive exercises here in New Providence ,especially so in Carmichael area, in Abaco, Andros, North Eleuthera, Grand Bahama and elsewhere around the country to make title available to families some of whom, in unauthorized occupation, developed commercial enterprises. Others constructed residences on government-owned land. In some cases families have resided and continue to reside on government-owned land without proper authorization, having done so for generations. The regularization exercise is ongoing and continuous. Already as many as 3,000 individuals will have received title to property upon which they have lived and worked around the country, in some cases for generations.
Indeed, I would hazard a guess that the term “settlement” used by us to describe communities around the Family Islands, derives from the practice of families “settling” on parcels of land, constructing homes, engaging in subsistence farming and creating small businesses on what was government-owned land. As occupation stretched into generations and no one could produce good title to the property, we called it Generation Land – whether in Cooper’s Town, Abaco, or in communities all over Abaco, North Eleuthera, Andros, Inagua, Long Island or Cat Island.
In some instances, the Government leased large parcels of land to Companies which were subsequently struck off the Register for non-payment of Company fees. As the Company’s business did not flourish, Bahamians families went into occupation as occurred on the “Company Land” in Green Turtle Cay.
In other instances, individuals leased land from the Government for farming in areas like at Cow Pen Road, an area that the Government had determined would be reserved for agricultural use only. Some of the lessees of this agricultural land instead developed the land commercially for various enterprises or for residences. The Cow Pen Road area is now a city with services from BEC and BTC, although it is not clear how those utility corporations would have extended services to these undeclared subdivisions! I believe accessing city water supply in these areas proved more difficult.
The Government acknowledges and accepts the legitimacy of the concerns of neighbouring home and property owners in places like Mackey Yard that Governments, my Government and Governments before mine, neglected to ensure that they could and would live in clean, well ordered communities and, as importantly, that properties into which they have invested hard earned dollars would be protected from squalid communities.
The reality is that we have identified a number of squatter communities on New Providence Island, all with the attendant social problems. We are addressing them systematically.
Just as these Squatter Settlements did not come about overnight, it will take time to eliminate them. But we will get the job done of reclaiming public lands and where circumstances require regularization of title, we will do the necessary. Today it’s Mackey Yard; earlier it was Pride Estates III. It will soon be Fire Trail Road, Sugarman Estate in Fox Hill and Dignity II on Carmichael Road. And, thereafter, it will be other places.
I encourage the 25 contractors who have been engaged to build houses on this site to produce quality work. I am deeply pained by many complaints by citizens who purchase and obtain mortgages for Government houses that the homes purchased were shoddily built. While this situation has been lessened, instances of poor construction still persist.
We expect that these houses will be built to good standards. The Ministry and Department of Housing are charged to ensure that they are in fact built to code and to good quality standard. Citizens, and indeed the Government, must not be required to expend hard earned dollars to repair inferior quality workmanship as has been the case in far too many instances.
I congratulate those persons who will be selected to purchase the houses now being built. I encourage them to take pride in their homes, to maintain them and to ensure that thus site never again returns to the blight which typified it before the terrible fire destroyed it.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am also informed that plans to relocate a number of residents to accommodate new proposed roadways have not endeared the Ministry of Housing to many former residents. I am assured however, that this relocation is necessary if we are to have a well-planned and supported new subdivision. I ask for the patience and cooperation of affected residents.
The Ministry of Housing is proceeding with the regularization of approximately 64 squatter families in Fire Trail I and II, and in Pride Estates III. Thereafter they will proceed to construct 110 houses in Pride II. A similar exercise is taking place in Pride Estates III and Dignity II.
The employment generated by these housing construction exercises are in and of themselves an important development for the economy.
Finally, I congratulate Minister Ken Russell for this accomplishment. His has not been an easy task most especially so over this same Mackey Yard subdivision. Thank you Ken for staying the course. And, I thank the Ministry, Department of Housing, and very importantly, the Bahamas Mortgage Corporation, for your efforts over the past four and a half years in advancing my government’s mandate to provide affordable housing to increased numbers of Bahamians. We look forward to the completion of your work.
Thank you and good afternoon.
