Grenada wants private sector partnership to build homes
Grenada Housing Minister Phillip Telesford has stated that the Dickon Mitchell administration may not be able to complete the 500 homes promised with full government funding so it will seek collaboration with private-sector stakeholders.
“The Government of Grenada may not necessarily build homes, but we may wish to partner by way of putting in infrastructural work. “Those of you who have large tracts of land and want to partner with us, we may form a joint venture for that purpose,” he said at a meeting last Monday with private land owners, contractors, and other construction industry service providers.
“We want to engage architects, designers, and contractors because we want you to partner with us,” he said. The meeting was held in the auditorium of Grenada Boys Secondary School (GBSS). Telesford, who is also the Minister for Social Development, Community Development, and Gender Affairs, announced that the government would pilot a housing project in the parish of St John in which samples of futuristic homes would be built. “In Marigot, or what you call Stony Gut, we have a portion of land that we want to use as a sort of testing ground to build some sample homes, utilizing new types of building materials; utilizing natural light from the sun, rainwater harvesting, ozone friendly materials, and whatever we can lay our hands on as a sort of sample as to what is possible in the future.”
“I am confident we can build some futuristic homes, and this is where architects, you, and contractors come in, to be able to build these as a sample of what the future looks like,” he said.
He stated that the approach used to build the homes will be critical to meeting the government’s goal of building 500 homes. “How do we collaborate; how do we make this happen? “I can tell you for a fact that many people from the international community have been knocking on Grenada’s doors to come in and build homes or sell us prefabricated homes, sell us building materials…because they want to partner,” he said.
Finance Minister Dickon Mitchell stated in his 2023 budget statement, which was presented to Parliament in December 2022, that his administration’s commitment for this term is to deliver 500 high-quality climate-resilient Grenadian-style houses.
He explained that the Stony Gut Climate-Resilient Housing Development Pilot Project, which aims to build modern, high-quality, climate-resilient, Grenadian-styled homes in Stony Gut, St John, will be one of the major initiatives in this budget cycle. The budget for this project is EC$2.5 million.