By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Tribune Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

TRANSPORT and Housing Minister JoBeth Coleby Davis says government may be close to locking down prospective areas in the western portion of New Providence “that will be better” than the area at Prospect Ridge proposed by the previous Minnis administration.

The minister has said this week that her technical team advised that government should step away from the highly anticipated Prospect Ridge development for young professionals, the brainchild of former Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis.

Dr Minnis has said around 30 names had been pre-approved for the development.

In response, Minister Coleby Davis said those people were still eligible for the Davis administration’s housing programme.

Additionally, the minister said she has set her sights on a goal of building 1,600 homes during this term in office.

“We have the list of persons that were pre-approved and like I stated on yesterday (Thursday) when I was speaking to the press that those pre-approvals they coincide with actually value,” the minister said during the Office of the Prime Minister’s weekly press briefing.

“So, that’s the value that you are approved for by your financial lender and so that doesn’t take them out of the category to being homeowners. That still puts them in the category of being homeowners.”

She continued: “It’s just that it may change the location of where the property is and that does not rule out west.

“We have already invested in having someone begin searching for other places out west and I had a very fruitful conversation yesterday and I’m hopeful that we will locate new locations out west for those persons who wish to live out west.

“But the east is a beautiful place to live as well. Elizabeth is very beautiful to live so don’t get distracted. We’re definitely looking for property out west and we think we may be close to locking down some areas that will be better and for us to start right away.”

She also defended the cost that has been chosen for various homes.

According to Mrs Coleby Davis, Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis would have liked the cost to remain at around $120,000 per home. However, it was not doable due to inflation.

The homes range from $120,000 to about $190,000.

“Actually, I will tell you the prime minister wanted just $120 (thousand). So, that’s his target.

“What we were faced with and obviously we’re still in a crisis, a pandemic and there is inflation and so the cost of material and the cost to build has went up and extremely high and it’s important to remember a lot of these contractors are small contractors.

“A lot of them haven’t had work for maybe two, three years. A number of years and so we have to make sure that we balance it.

“Yes, we can put people in their home and it can be affordable to the extent that we still allow these contractors to be able to take something home to their families and not just transfer the funds to purchase the material and then have nothing left for themselves to take home to their families and so we have to find a healthy balance.

“But I will tell you that we have a data base right now at the Department of Housing we have a number of persons that have qualified up to over $210,000.

“They are quite comfortably ready to move into the homes and so where there may be some concerns with the cost, we have persons that actually are ready and are qualified for the numbers that we’re putting out.”

The Department of Housing is also looking at how it can facilitate prospective homeowners for a rent-to-own payment option.

“Most definitely, we’re trying to determine the structure,” she said in response to a question from The Tribune.

“So, I had two examples for our two templates that came to me from lenders who would be willing to assist the government in doing that and I want to make sure that the structure is tight.

“What happens with rent to own is actually the renter, the tenant doesn’t have much protection because if they default you can just take them out of the home because it’s not really theirs.

“So, we’re trying to find a structure that will actually protect both the government and then also we don’t want to be putting people on the street if they don’t come in to pay their rent or if they miss two or three months of paying their rent.

“So, it has to be a balance in how we design that structure. We’re looking at a structure that they presently use in New Zealand and it’s not really a rent to own. It’s almost like an escrow/asue sort of account where they allow persons to pay in to build up their down payment in equity with the government programme and then they enter into their home and they design it by whether they pay to enter in 18 months or in three years.

“So, those are the options that we’re presently discussing and once we tighten it up and tighten up the structure that the Cabinet will be happy with and that I will be happy with to present to the Bahamian people we will speak more about that.

“But I will tell you that I’ve been speaking with quite a number of self-employed persons, especially in the Family Islands, and they are really interested in that because it’s quite difficult for them to build equity and credit with the bank being self-employed, but they’re making good money and they are able to afford $1,200 and so they would be comfortable to afford paying a mortgage, but because of their present circumstances they don’t get the mortgage approvals from the bank as they would like to so that programme would work well with persons like that as well,” she said.