Gov’t to build townhouses as next phase of ‘housing revolution’

Minister of Finance Camillo Gonsalves says the next phase of the Unity Labour Party administration’s “housing revolution” will involve the construction of townhouses.

Gonsalves said on Star FM, the party’s radio station, that the government has been spending time building houses for people who are affected by natural hazards.

The minister, however, said an “underserved” group is young professionals just coming back from school or starting their professional lives.

He said he had been working with the state-owned Bank of St. Vincent and the Grenadines (BoSVG) in this regard.

“We had this conversation last year, and they’ve been refining and going back and forth over a plan to have condominium and townhouse-style housing for young professionals in different locations around St. Vincent and the Grenadines,” the minister said.

Gonsalves said some of these houses will be built at the site of the “city of Arnos Vale”, at the decommissioned ET Joshua Airport.

“We’re talking about on the Leeward Coast; we’re talking about in the suburbs, not in Kingstown proper but in areas that ring Kingstown where we found land, where in the past, you would say, well, they could only put on five houses here, or something, or six houses,” the minister said.

He said there is a local design for townhouses, “where, essentially, the bottom floor of the building will be a single-storey, one- or two-bedroom facility and then above that will be two storeys, and that will be a larger townhouse that will have three bedrooms and a study and that kind of thing.

“And the design has been done … I think it’s a good design. It’s modern. It’s something that you would see not just in St. Vincent and the Grenadines but elsewhere.”

He said BoSVG has “developed packages that will make these houses very accessible and affordable to young professionals.

The bank will amalgamate any loans that the applicant for this housing loan has, Gonsalves said, adding that the government has set “an aggressive” price point.

“An announcement will come but I don’t want to steal the prime minister or the Bank of St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ thunder, but we have set some price points, because we look at what wages are for young professionals, and we assume, we have a target of like, let us say that it is a teacher married to a bank teller, and they’re both in the early 20s.”

He said the first phase would be of 64 units, but he did not disclose the location.

“I’m going to leave that for the prime minister to announce. And then the second one will be another 64 units in another location. And we’re going to hope that there’s a lot of uptake from young professionals,” Gonsalves said.

“I believe that the big problem we’re going to have there is keeping out old people like me who might want to buy one of those things as an investment property and to rent it out,” he said.

The minister expressed hope that the government would come up with a way to make the townhouses accessible to first-time homeowners.

“I’d rather a young person buy it and rent it out than I buy it and rent it out. … because it’s about creating wealth for young people,” he said.

The minister said some of the land at the decommissioned airport, where a hospital is also being built, will be for mixed commercial and residential use.

“There’s going to be the hospital in the north, there’s going to be a boardwalk and some tourism-type stuff on the seaside. And then in between, there’s going to be mixed-use residential and retail,” he said.  

“So, it’s going to be a lot like you see in some modern areas overseas, where you have condo units and modern apartment units upstairs and retail space down below.”

He said this is how cities are kept vibrant, adding that the capital, Kingstown, has evolved into “that you have a bunch of shops and stores and businesses.

“So, at the end of the work, everybody leaves, and then the place becomes a bit of a ghost town.”