BY KEVA LIGHTBOURNE

GUARDIAN STAFF REPORTER

The presence of a large number of squatters is holding up the government's plans to create a low-cost housing subdivision off Carmichael Road.

Minister of Housing and National Insurance Shane Gibson said Wednesday that an expenditure of up to $10 million is planned to provide 400 new low-cost homes on 60 acres of Crown land on the northern side of Carmichael Road.

During a tour of the site, that included representatives of the Urban Renewal Commission, Environmental Health Services, and Police Force, Housing Ministry officials got a first hand view of a growing community of squatters.

Before the new housing project could be initiated, Mr Gibson said, the question of the large numbers of families occupying a significant portion of the area had to be resolved.

'Thriving' community

Although his ministry would be as sensitive as possible in the matter, Mr Gibson said, "We have the challenge of determining first of all how many families actually reside on the land. We have estimated it to be somewhere between 50 and 80 homes that are on the land already.

He continued: "We have the challenge of trying to determine out of those 50 to 80 homes how many persons actually reside in the homes, which we have estimated approximately five persons to each household. And in addition to that we have to determine which ones are legal and which ones are illegal and how we would go about developing the subdivision either around them or trying to have these persons relocated."

The squatters would be treated in as humane and dignified a fashion as possible, Mr Gibson said, and not simply thrown into the streets.

No bulldozers, yet

According to Mr Gibson: "We will form a task force to go into the area to determine exactly what exists on this parcel of land. And of course it won't be easy in terms of trying to relocate some of the residents.

"Although the land is owned by government," Mr Gibson continued, "we are still very, very sensitive to those persons who had occupied it for quite some time now, and those who occupy it illegally.

"We don't want to go in and send the bulldozers to level everything. What we will do is, we will start in the areas that are not occupied and we will move from the clear area closer towards where they are occupying, so by the time we get to that area we would have had meetings with them and we would have sensitised them enough and given them a chance to relocate."

Water pollution

The new housing project would also eliminate several environmental concerns, Mr Gibson said.

He noted that the area was once used by the Water and Sewerage Corporation as wellfields, with large numbers of squatters living in close proximity.

"They had a lot of waste thrown into the land contaminating the water supply," he said.

10,000 home applicants

Mr Gibson said that about 10,000 applications for new homes were on file at the Department of Housing, and while not all would be successful, the government had to find some way to deal with the ones that qualified.

However, he said, "We still have not just decided whether we will put single family residence, or if we will look at putting some multi-family residents as well, and possibly putting up some rental units."

Posted: Friday January 16, 2004