National Housing Policy Document to be completed by June

Minister of Water and Housing, Hon. Dr. Horace Chang, has announced that the National Housing Policy document will be completed by the end of June.

Making his contribution to the Sectoral Debate in the House of Representatives, today (May 18), the Minister informed that, “we are now in the final stages of consultation.”

He noted that although there have been various policy approaches to housing since Independence, the Housing sector has operated without a clear policy for a number of years, hence the importance of the policy.

“What we now have is a sustainable policy that will lead to significant growth in the sector over the next 20 years and enable us to achieve the targets set out in the Vision 2030 document,” he said.

Dr. Chang informed that some of the key proposals within the policy are: the use of new and bold affordable mortgage arrangements; a revitalisation of the Secondary Mortgage Market; expansion of the sources of income that can be used to determine eligibility for mortgages, to include remittances; and expansion and transformation of existing housing subsidy programmes.

Other proposals are: the use of unutilised and underutilised government owned land for affordable housing projects; public-private partnerships; provision for special needs housing; shared ownership of housing units; reintroduction of reverse mortgages; rehabilitation and maintenance of the existing housing stock; acceleration of the squatter regularisation programme; and streamlining of the Land Titling process.