Camille McEach­nie

Ques­tions are be­ing raised about the on­go­ing con­struc­tion of what re­al es­tate ex­perts es­ti­mate to be a mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar house at To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly’s (THA) high­ly sub­sidised Blenheim hous­ing project at Hope, To­ba­go.

Pic­tures of the house un­der con­struc­tion at lot 64 be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing last week on var­i­ous so­cial me­dia plat­forms.

This is be­cause the Heights of Blenheim project, one of five un­der­tak­en by the THA over the past 20 years, caters to low-in­come earn­ers.

Ques­tions arose as to who would be able to fund such a prop­er­ty giv­en the fact that it specif­i­cal­ly tar­gets low-in­come earn­ers and whether the own­ers would have had per­mis­sion to un­der­take such con­struc­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion from the THA, the Blenheim project start­ed in May 2006 and was to be com­plet­ed by Jan­u­ary 2007.

There was a salary cap of $10,000 be­fore ap­pli­cants could ap­ply for the hous­es and be­gin the process of ac­quir­ing deeds of mort­gage and deeds of sale.

A scenic view of the ocean from the Heights of Blenheim in Hope.

Vindra Gopaul

Sin­gle unit hous­es and con­do­mini­ums, not lands, were sold to qual­i­fy­ing ap­pli­cants at three es­tates--Blenheim, Cas­tara and Ad­ven­ture. In oth­er projects at Sig­nal Hill and Calder Hall Phas­es 1and 2, lands were sold to ap­pli­cants. The THA’s Di­vi­sion of Set­tle­ments is re­spon­si­ble for the dis­tri­b­u­tion of the lands and homes. Ac­cord­ing to doc­u­ments from the THA, in 2010, the mar­ket val­ue of a three-bed­room house and land at the Blenheim Es­tate was $585,000 and a two-bed­room unit cost $335,000.

The doc­u­ments not­ed that af­ter tax­pay­ers’ funds were in­ject­ed, the hous­es were sold at a sub­sidised price of $410,000 and $177,000 re­spec­tive­ly.

In 2010, a Re­port of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the con­struc­tion sec­tor re­vealed that the hous­es were “un­sellable.”

The Gov­ern­ment-spon­sored in­quiry not­ed that “de­spite the hous­es be­ing sub­stan­tial­ly com­plete for over a year, much of the in­fra­struc­ture work re­mained to be done.”

It dis­cov­ered too that the to­tal cost al­lo­cat­ed for build­ing 141 homes was $18,429,732 but on­ly 61 hous­es were built for $18,306,876.

One of the low-cost properties at the Heights of Blenheim.

Vindra Gopaul

“...The con­tin­u­ing de­lay wait­ing for in­fra­struc­ture works to ren­der the hous­es hab­it­able rep­re­sents a fur­ther loss...,” the re­port con­clud­ed. Some of the units were nev­er oc­cu­pied. The com­mis­sion al­so re­port­ed that “slope fail­ures re­sult­ed in com­plete loss of (some) units.”

To­ba­go To­day reached out to the THA Sec­re­tary of Set­tle­ments, Ur­ban Re­new­able and Pub­lic Util­i­ties Clarence Ja­cob for com­ment on the own­er­ship of the prop­er­ty and the con­cerns raised about whether its own­ers, if they can af­ford such ex­pense, should have qual­i­fied to se­cure it giv­en the tar­get mar­ket for the de­vel­op­ment.

“I do not have all the de­tails at hand, but when I get them I will make it avail­able,” Ja­cobs said.

The area rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the Canaan/Bon Ac­cord elec­toral dis­trict, who re­cent­ly sent a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to two mem­bers of the con­stituen­cy for al­leged­ly slan­der­ing him, is cur­rent­ly fac­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s screen­ing com­mit­tee as he seeks re-elec­tion to rep­re­sent the par­ty in the up­com­ing THA elec­tions.

The multi-million dollar house at the Heights of Blenheim which is now raising eyebrows because the development is for low-income earners.

Vindra Gopaul