BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – PRIME MINISTER Dr. the Hon. Denzil Douglas has reinforced his government’s dedication to providing land for the people of St. Kitts and Nevis.
The Prime Minister emphasised this commitment at his monthly press conference on Wednesday (Feb. 4), where he noted special attention was being paid to the 2007 Special Land Distribution Initiative (SLDI) and the National Housing Corporation Housing Solution 500 programme that was launched last year.
According to dr. Douglas, the SLDI was created to promote empowerment and economic advancement of nationals through land ownership. He stated that although it was well publicised that the programme had been specifically designed to provide land to those who had never owned before, its announcement had resulted in a flood of applications, many from persons who had already acquired land.
He added that in order to address the problem, the ministry had developed a much more rigorous screening system and all of this had added time to the process. However, he revealed that the new screening process was in place and the programme was fully operational.
“As of January, approximately 285 acres have been committed to the programme and 1 395 house lots have been created under the SLDI alone. Five hundred lots have been offered for sale to SLDI applicants. Two hundred and thirty-one applicants have completed their surveys and 130 SLDI payments for land have been made.
“When we first launched the initiative, we indicated there would be 5 000 lots open. I think we should be able to fulfil the demand so far as long as the requests made are not frivolous,” Dr. Douglas said.
He announced the creation of a recently established multi-disciplinary, multi-agency Land Distribution Committee that had responsibility for accelerating the land distribution policy.
“Fourteen acres have been allocated to Garvey’s Westlands Gardens Housing Development, 17 acres to Stonefort Caribbean View Housing Development, 19 acres to Mansion Housing Development, 31.5 acres to Park View Housing Development Extension in Molineux, 11 acres to Lodge Housing Development, 28 acres to the Cabbage Tree Housing Development Extension in Cayon and 41.61 acres to Stapleton Gardens Housing Development.
“With the new sites that we have opened up over the last few months, we have close to 1 400 house lots that have been made available. I think the programme is doing well and those who say they can’t get land, it’s a joke they are really making,” the PM declared.
He further stated that the government had created a number of commercial and industrial parks around the island in order to stimulate island wide economic activity, as opposed to just the main towns, and to accommodate the need for land by businesses.
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