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More than three hundred families and landowners now have titles to properties in the St. Matthew’s Village Extension and Frank’s Eddy Subdivision. Government handed over three hundred and forty-three land titles, covering residential lots and agricultural parcels in the two communities. For recipients Chris Jeffords and Ruby Enriquez, the handover was an opportunity to speak about what owning land means to them.
Chris Jeffords, Land Recipient: “This is my first time well, like I said, I am grateful for the land, a new obstacle where I could build up myself and know where I could put myself in the next step in my life. I plan to build a house, move in my family so that I can move from my mom’s land to my land and make my family bigger and make better for myself. Most youth aren’t as lucky as I am lucky but like I said, I thank to the most high and our chairlady Ms. Esperanza and mostly Mr. Julius Espat for looking out for the youths, he always makes sure he has the youth’s backs.”
Ruby Enriquez, Land Recipient: “It’s been approximately twelve years living here.”
Reporter: So how does it feel to get your land title today ? Is this your first time owning land ?
Ruby Enriquez, Land Recipient: “It definitely feels great having something that I can call my own so I feel very happy for the program that was developed and being able to receive this land. It feels very good. It’s an achievement for me and my husband to be able to have this land so we are very grateful to Ms.Esperanza and all her team that were able to make this a possibility.”
The allocation includes two hundred and thirty-nine residential lots and sixteen agricultural parcels in the St. Matthew’s Village Extension. Another eighty-eight residential lots are in the Frank’s Eddy Subdivision. The titles give recipients greater security over their properties, whether they intend to build a home or use the land for farming. Cayo West Area Representative Julius Espat spoke at the handover.
Julius Espat, Cayo South Area Representative: “We’ve been working on various land distribution, this is one of them. We found the property that was available. And so it’s been a good collaborative effort between both ministries. Here we have approximately 238 residential lots, about a quarter acre each, and about 16 agricultural lots which ranges between 7 to 10 acres each. And then we have about 88 lots in Franks Eddy but those are properties already lived on, so we just manage to survey it and then give them the ability to have purchase price so they can own it. But it’s been good. When you can help people, it’s a positive thing. We are in a rural community. Cayo South is rural and most of the villagers are farmers and one of the complaints secondary to owning your whole slot is to own a piece of farmland and so we decided to do some of the farmland too so that the farmers can have where to do their work. We’ve acquired land in Armenia we have had two phases there and each phase was about a hundred lots each so we have done about 200 there maybe more and we’ve done in the Valley of Peace that’s about maybe 60 to 70. We have done in Cotton Tree which gives us about 60 there. We have done in Blackman. We try to find what’s available, what government land is available. It’s been difficult because Cayo South has a lot of investment coming in and so a lot of the land has already been bought privately. And what we have done mostly is to be able to formalize where people live. A lot of the people, a large majority, don’t own their land in the villages. So a lot of effort has gone into not to acquire new land but to be able to survey the areas that they live in the villages themselves to be able to give them the opportunity to own the land because they’ve been living on it for over 30 years and have no papers at all. So that’s also something that we have worked on.”
Minister of Natural Resources and Deputy Prime Minister Cordel Hyde also addressed the gathering. He spoke about the collaboration behind the initiative and the work involved in getting the titles into recipients’ hands.
Cordel Hyde, Minister of Natural Resources: “We’re giving away over 300 purchase approvals for residents here for St. Mathews and Franks Eddy. A vast majority of them are first time land owners and a good chunk of them are for people who have developed their land over a period of time, lived on their land but never got documentation. And so we’ve been fortunate enough to regularize those people. And I believe about 17 farmers are getting farmland. So it’s a really diversified bunch and we’re really happy to be able to do this today. Ultimately, I give the final approval because it’s national land. So that’s the good thing. We were able to find national land and MIDH was able to subdivide the land for us and his office and his people work very closely with my office and my people. They have a great working relationship and so over the years we’ve been able to get a lot of purchase approvals for residents here. And this happened pretty quickly, but a lot of dogged effort from a lot of key people. And my job is easy, I only sign because there are government land and there is no contention. So it’s pretty easy on my end. But a lot of people heavy lift from my office and the minister’s constituency office.”
The recipients are now required to make payments to the Lands Department in order to obtain title.
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