Yvonne Ba­boolal

The mil­lion-dol­lar Co­conut Grove hous­ing de­vel­op­ment in Or­toire, Ma­yaro, built six years ago, close to swamp­land, is still large­ly un­oc­cu­pied. At a Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) cer­e­mo­ny on Jan­u­ary 17, ear­li­er this year to hand out keys to the 51-unit de­vel­op­ment, on­ly 11 peo­ple showed up, work­ers at the con­stituen­cy of­fice of Ma­yaro MP, Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters told the Sun­day Guardian. A vis­it to the de­vel­op­ment three weeks ago re­vealed that on­ly five or six hous­es were ac­tu­al­ly ten­ant­ed.

Res­i­dents in­clud­ed four se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers hired by the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion sev­en months ago as cus­to­di­ans. The oth­er res­i­dents, who asked to re­main anony­mous, said since they moved in they have nev­er had a pipe-borne wa­ter sup­ply. Res­i­dents are al­so bat­tling with snakes, mos­qui­toes and frogs and are brac­ing for the rainy sea­son, which is ex­pect­ed to flood their homes. The hous­es are perched on short pil­lars ex­treme­ly close to the ground.

Snakes, frogs, mos­qui­toes

"No­body wants to come here," a res­i­dent said. He claimed while there was a Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) "con­nec­tion" at the lo­ca­tion, there was nev­er a sup­ply since they moved in. "My fam­i­ly brings wa­ter for me."

His oth­er prob­lem was the snakes, he said. "Is re­al snakes I kill here."

The Charles fam­i­ly moved in on Chest­nut Av­enue one month ago from Ma­yaro with two young chil­dren and have had to de­pend on WASA to come and fill their tanks. "When you make a re­quest, they come," a mem­ber of the fam­i­ly said. An­oth­er fam­i­ly moved from Gas­par­il­lo two months ago and have not been as lucky as the Charles' with a wa­ter sup­ply.

"I have to buy my wa­ter. I pay $75 for a 400 gal­lon tank," the moth­er of the house­hold, which in­cludes two small sons, said. "I have a ba­by to see about and she needs plen­ty wa­ter. Plus, I have a dog to bathe reg­u­lar­ly." She said they ap­plied for a house about five years ago and it was ap­proved this year. "Or­toire was my fourth choice. But I am hap­py to have a roof over my head." An­oth­er wor­ry­ing con­cern to res­i­dents is the in­ter­est they have to pay on the mort­gages for the units.

"A three-bed­room house costs $220,000 but when we're fin­ished pay­ing in­ter­est at 7.5 per cent, it amounts to $500,000," one res­i­dent said. The Sun­day Guardian saw that iron from rail­ings and oth­er parts of the hous­es were start­ing to rust be­cause of the sea blast. We were told win­dows were jammed and some res­i­dents had to do the re­pair work. There was lit­tle ev­i­dence of drainage for the com­pounds.

Re­view house prices

Pe­ters said the units, which were sup­posed to be low-cost, were built on re­claimed swamp­land with­out due con­sid­er­a­tion to en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pact, such as flood­ing and en­croach­ment on the banks of the near­by Or­toire Riv­er. Pe­ters claimed that 59 more units are planned for the same site. "Like many oth­er low-in­come hous­ing units, Co­conut Grove has no de­sign.

"There is lim­it­ed yard space, no green spaces for park or play­ground and no room for ren­o­va­tion or ex­pan­sion." (The Sun­day Guardian saw a tiny wash tub at­tached to one out­er wall, which con­sti­tut­ed wash­ing space.) "There is no drainage in­fra­struc­ture around the perime­ters of the site and wa­ter set­tles be­low each unit in the rainy sea­son, cre­at­ing con­di­tions for breed­ing mos­qui­toes, dengue, malar­ia and oth­er dis­eases."

Pe­ters called for a re­view of the pric­ing of all hous­ing units, es­pe­cial­ly those built for low-in­come earn­ers. "Eco­nom­ic chal­lenges, bud­getary deficits and the im­pact on the cost of liv­ing should be tak­en in­to con­sid­er­a­tion," he said. "Fast track the pro­cess­ing and ap­provals of va­cant State lands for per­sons in­ter­est­ed in build­ing their own homes," he said.

Re­spons­es

Hous­ing Min­istry

Annabelle Bras­nell, the Hous­ing Min­istry's com­mu­ni­ca­tions di­rec­tor, when asked about the wa­ter and oth­er prob­lems at Co­conut Grove, replied: "The HDC doesn't sup­ply wa­ter. We sup­ply lines. "If the peo­ple at Co­conut Grove are not get­ting wa­ter and it's not an HDC prob­lem, they should con­tact WASA.

"If it's an HDC prob­lem, we will in­ves­ti­gate it." She said the HDC did some ma­jor drainage and wa­ter con­trol work on the project, which is why they took as long as they did to dis­trib­ute the keys. Al­so, the pil­lars are short be­cause of back­fill­ing of the land that was done af­ter the hous­es were com­plet­ed, she said.

WASA

WASA's com­mu­ni­ca­tions de­part­ment said the au­thor­i­ty tried to pres­sure test lines and pump wa­ter in­to the de­vel­op­ment but they said the lines were not laid down prop­er­ly and there were a lot of leaks so they had to iso­late the sup­ply. It added that it was seek­ing to re­solve the prob­lem by li­ais­ing with the HDC.