Browne Analyzes New Housing Project

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Economy

Monday, 09 July 2012 02:30

By caribarena news

Antigua St John's - The 25-year housing development project inked by the government and a UK housing development company is yet another “blunderbuss”  approach to economic stimulation that could undoubtedly end up along the same lines as the North Sound and Follies housing development projects.

Chairman of the Antigua Labour Party (ALP) Gaston Browne, who had proposed a housing development project of his own, said the five-year initiative could have been crafted to include traditional building practices that could ultimately generate more than a mere $5 million annual revenue for the economy.

“I am convinced that a properly planned construction initiative, using a traditional concrete building system that is incentivized, could be just as cost effective as any other building system. I am also of the view that our traditional building system will provide greater employment opportunities and will be a stimulus to the economy and of greater benefit to blue collar workers in this country,” Browne said.

He added that the notion of a mechanized system that seems to have been engaged the minds of policy makers has not proven itself to ultimately redound in the benefit of the country, in the sense that whatever cost savings are achieved through the increase in efficiencies will be reflected in a manner that profits the outside contractor more than it does the nation.

Speaking to the construction company’s proposal to make Antigua its hub for regional and South American activities, Brown said he found it hard to believe how the company proposed to effectively compete in Antigua with power costs being the highest in the OECS and possibly South America.

“Our energy costs here are almost 15 percent higher that any other Caribbean country, which automatically will put such a plant or manufacturing enterprise at a disadvantage. So, I don't think that they have done the research to determine the viability of this project.”

“I think they are still at the preliminary stage and by the time they are done their research they would have recognized that there is no way they could produce those building systems here to compete outside of Antigua & Barbuda. I am not buying into the export potential,” Browne said.

That fact alone, he added, would make the enterprise uncompetitive.

Browne also opined that the economic benefits of initiatives like these, when viewed in the same light of North Sound and Follies housing projects, go towards expatriates more than locals.

“The traditional system, well managed, well incentivized, could bring more benefits than those building systems that are expatriate-owned in which you will have maybe a 35 percent profit margin being exported to another country,” Browne reiterated.

Incentivizing the price of land to facilitate such development projects is one that the opposition member of parliament considers to be fair practice but he does caution against the lack of transparency in these practices.

“They have to be careful of individuals speculating with our land and utilizing the profit pretense or the promise of profit just to lure us into giving away large parcels of land. Any such request should be done with strict performance clauses and in a modular way or phased basis to make sure that they (developers) don't end up with large tracts of land that they could speculate with,” Browne said.

In the meantime, acting Chief Town and Country Planner Frederick Southwell says he is not aware of the plans for the proposed development ever being presented to the Development Control Authority (DCA) for approval.

He said he was also unaware of land being allocated for the development.

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