The regularisation process for some residents living at Section E, Non-Pariel, East Coast Demerara will soon begin and will see about 80 families accessing legal documentation for some of the lands that they occupy.
On Saturday the Minister within the Ministry of Housing and Water Susan Rodrigues held a consultation meeting with villagers at a residence in Non-Pariel, explaining what the procedure entails.
Minister Rodrigues explained that there are different stages of the regularisation process.
“So, the people who are squatting in those areas that we call the ‘zero tolerance’ areas will have to be relocated and the people who are on lands that could be regularised, we will proceed with the regularisation process,” the minister explained.
As a result, an occupational survey was done to identify the structures that can remain and those that will have to be relocated.
In 2021, the ministry conducted an occupation survey and found 80 occupied structures. This survey has already been submitted to the ministry’s Central Housing and Planning Authority (CHPA).
According to the minister, the ministry has already inventorised those persons so anyone who occupied land after the survey will have to be removed.
“The planning department will then convert this survey to a block plan which will identify the boundaries and do it to scale. So, this will have all the measurements.”
Minister within the Ministry of Housing and Water, Susan Rodrigues listens to the concerns of the residents (Photo: DPI)
She went on to say, “The plan will also have the access for each property. It will show the road network, drainage network, and the areas that have to be reserved.”
Upon the completion of this block plan, a lot number will then be placed on the lands.
The next step would then be for the ministry to write to GuySuCo who is the owner of the lands for permission.
This permission will seek for the transfer of the land to CHPA so that it can be turned into a housing development where titles can then be issued.
To make this process efficient, Minister Rodrigues encouraged the residents to submit their land application to the ministry if they have not done so as yet.
“Once the ownership is transferred from GuySuCo to us and we process your titles it then becomes an area under CHPA in which we can budget money for,”Minister Rodrigues stated.
Many of the residents have been living in the Non-Pariel area for over two decades, undocumented.
This move by the housing ministry will allow some persons to achieve the goal of legally owning a plot of land and building a sustainable life for themselves and family.
Since the return of the PPP/C government heavy emphasis has been placed on the regularisation of lands in the country under the ‘Operation Clean’ programme.
As a result, from 2020 to present over 1,000 lots have been regularised. [DPI]
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