21 more families received certificate of titles to CBI-financed homes in the Petite Savanne resettlement area. In December 2018, 38 families received the keys to their own homes in the same area, out of the total 353 homes constructed by the Montreal Management Consultants Establishments (MMCE).
All the families to whom the houses in Bellevue Chopin were given had been living in them for some time. But they all got the Certificate of Titles that effectively made the houses their own for life on the orders of Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit. Critics in the opposition had always chided the government for deceiving the residents with homeownership, but the Skerrit-led administration has proven the critics wrong by handing over home keys to residents.
“Every one of you, you will get a title in your name from the Registry of Dominica saying that house in Bellevue Chopin is yours and your family’s house,” Skerrit earlier told residents during a Town Hall meeting on August 22.
More than 800 people were displaced from Petite Savanne following the 2015 devastation caused by Tropical Storm Erika. But the government commenced reconstruction of the area in 2016 and the first homeowners got their residential keys late last year.
To make the houses more resilient to natural disasters, utility lines for the new housing project were run underground. The entire housing plans are better and stronger since they followed modern construction designs.
Dr. Kenneth Darroux, the parliamentary representative for Petite Savanne constituency, said Bellevue Chopin will become a hallmark for standard suburban communities in Dominica and the entire Caribbean region. This is largely because the area will include a commercial plaza for local businesses, a community center, an agriculture market, a sporting facility for football, cricket and basketball games as well as children’s playground.
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