Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee said sev­er­al hous­ing projects are near­ing com­ple­tion and will be hand­ed over to ap­pli­cants in the first quar­ter of 2026.

“We have a very nice de­vel­op­ment in Cau­ra, some love­ly town­hous­es, over 100 units, that is about 95 per cent com­plete and will be go­ing out for dis­tri­b­u­tion soon,” Lee said.

“We have an­oth­er stock of town­hous­es in Tre­strail, D’Abadie, that is al­so near­ing com­ple­tion and will be go­ing out short­ly. We have some homes in Ari­ma that will be go­ing out for dis­tri­b­u­tion very soon.”

He was speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at his Ca­roni Cen­tral con­stituen­cy of­fice on Freeport Mis­sion Road while meet­ing with con­stituents.

Lee said the min­istry will al­so ex­pand pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships to de­liv­er af­ford­able homes with­in 12 to 18 months.

“We ex­pect a lot of things hap­pen­ing in 2026 go­ing in­to 2027,” he said.

The min­is­ter said the re­struc­tur­ing of the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) un­der the new board and chair­man, Feeroz Khan, has fo­cused on im­prov­ing main­te­nance con­tracts, en­sur­ing bet­ter val­ue for tax­pay­ers and es­tab­lish­ing home­own­ers’ as­so­ci­a­tions at all HDC sites.

“All HDC sites will have prop­er HOAs (Home­own­er As­so­ci­a­tions), so home­own­ers have a stake in their com­mu­ni­ty and can take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the ar­eas where HDC homes were built,” he said.

Lee al­so warned that any­one il­le­gal­ly oc­cu­py­ing an HDC home with­out a prop­er ti­tle would be re­moved un­der the law.

“Any­one who il­le­gal­ly oc­cu­pies a home on an HDC site and does not have prop­er ti­tle or own­er­ship to the home, and breaks in­to the home to take own­er­ship, will be re­moved with­in the law,” he said.

Feeroz Khan, in a pre­vi­ous in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, out­lined a new con­struc­tion ap­proach un­der a de­sign-build fi­nance mod­el, where the State pays on­ly for mort­gage-ready units de­liv­ered.

He said the T&T Mort­gage Bank (TTMB) will sup­port the scheme, of­fer­ing sub­sidised mort­gages at two per cent to low-in­come earn­ers earn­ing $14,000 per month or less, with 100 per cent fi­nanc­ing avail­able for homes priced be­low $1 mil­lion.

HDC cur­rent­ly has about 200,000 ap­pli­cants await­ing pub­lic hous­ing, though many may not qual­i­fy for a mort­gage.

Low-in­come ap­pli­cants could ac­cess the Land Set­tle­ment Agency’s “Land for the Land­less” pro­gramme, where the State pro­vides land and fa­cil­i­tates con­struc­tion.

While Khan has promised a shift to­wards new con­struc­tion, con­tracts award­ed since the April 28 gen­er­al elec­tion have large­ly fo­cused on com­plet­ing ex­ist­ing de­vel­op­ments, re­me­di­al works and re­pairs.

HDC da­ta show 122 homes were hand­ed over to ap­pli­cants be­tween April 28 and No­vem­ber 21, main­ly from Cy­press Hills in San Fer­nan­do and Oa­sis Greens in Ch­agua­nas, with ad­di­tion­al al­lo­ca­tions at Ridgeview Heights in Arou­ca, Cashew Gar­dens in Ch­agua­nas, Orop­une Gar­dens in Pi­ar­co, Eden Gar­dens in Freeport, Re­al Spring in Val­sayn, Trou Macaque in Laven­tille, Gomez Trace in Moru­ga, Point Fortin, Carlsen Field and Tarou­ba.

Re­cent con­tracts in­clude re­fur­bish­ment and re­me­di­al works at Ed­in­burgh Tow­ers West Block, Hol­ly Be­taudi­er in Ari­ma, Buen In­ten­to Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment, Mon Re­pos in San Fer­nan­do, Fairview Vil­lage in Moru­ga, Cy­press Hills, Oa­sis Greens, River­side North and South in San Fer­nan­do, Scott and Gor­don, and Or­chids Gar­dens in Pleas­antville.

Con­tract vari­a­tions for on­go­ing work at Fairview and Vic­to­ria Keys al­so re­main ac­tive.