Homeowners who subscribed to the government’s 500 homes in 500 days project will have to wait a bit longer before they can move into their homes in Paynters.
The delay is attributed to the unfinished roadways, as was revealed during an update on the progress of work at the three locations — Paynters, Denfields and Dredge Bay — which was presented to the Cabinet on Wednesday.
The General Manager of the National Housing and Urban Renewal Company Ltd, accompanied by a team of his managers, provided the update after the Cabinet sought answers as to why the deadlines had been extended on numerous occasions.
According to Lionel “Max” Hurst, the government’s Chief of Staff, homeowners are to date unable to occupy a number of the houses completed on the project sites due to the fact that, without proper roads, the banks cannot give an exact value of the property “About 60 houses are now ready for occupation, but there’s a slight setback in that the roads have not been paved, and even the banks are insisting that they must repave the roads in order for the houses to reach the expected value that the banks place upon them when they do loans to homeowners,” Hurst said.
The Minister of Works, Lennox Weston, has however given Cabinet the assurance that road work will intensify at Paynters so that the owners of the completed homes will be able to move in by the second week in February.
At Denfields, it is anticipated that 35 homes will be ready for occupancy by the end of this month.