The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) on Fri­day be­gan clear­ing land space at both Shir­van and the COVE De­vel­op­ment to sell to res­i­dents af­fect­ed by the ex­pan­sion of the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, the THA said that it be­gan clear­ing the space on Fri­day af­ter it re­ceived the Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance (CEC) from the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty.

"In an ef­fort to ease the bur­den on res­i­dents who have to be re­lo­cat­ed as a re­sult of the planned air­port ex­pan­sion, the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly will be sell­ing lands to the res­i­dents at rates sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er than mar­ket val­ue," the me­dia re­lease said.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­lease, the res­i­den­tial lands at Shir­van De­vel­op­ment will be sold at $20-$30 per square foot. Com­mer­cial lands at COVE de­vel­op­ment will be avail­able for $45 per square foot.

"The THA will make avail­able 12.5 acres of ul­tra-prime lands at Shir­van De­vel­op­ment and 30 acres of ul­tra-prime lands at COVE De­vel­op­ment," the THA said.

In the me­dia re­lease, Chief Sec­re­tary Kelvin Charles said that while the af­fect­ed res­i­dents have the op­tion of pur­chas­ing THA-owned lands, res­i­dents are al­so en­ti­tled to source al­ter­na­tive land and prop­er­ty on the pri­vate mar­ket.

"The THA will pro­vide a few pre-ap­proved house de­signs for the res­i­dents, which will make their home con­struc­tion process sim­pler," Charles said.