Sandhill Residents Receive Land Titles Through Belize Rural North Initiative

Three hundred residents from the Belize Rural North constituency are now first-time landowners as a result of an initiative undertaken by Area Representative Marconi Leal Jr. Residents in Sandhill Village received the titles to their lots on Friday through the collaboration with the village council and Leal’s Constituency Office.  According to Leal, the process was lengthy due to the number of applications being handled, but it was worthwhile seeing residents get their house lots. 

Marconi Leal Jr, Belize Rural North Area Representative:“Land distribution is important. We know Plan Belize 2.0 speaks a lot of about first time land owners and so I think we’re a little bit around 800 lots being distributed in Belize Rural North. Last night was a little bit around 300, we average it to around 300 because we did a few weeks ago a little more and we still have more to give out in Sand Hill but one of our focus is as an area representative is to try to identify land for first time land owners. The process starts with trying to identify the land whether it’s government land, whether it’s private property and we do acquisition but in most cases we find that people want to live within their village and so it’s identifying land within that village whether it’s government land or trying to acquire the land and then there’s surveying of the land and then after the surveying is completed then we move to the application process and then that takes some time because there’s so much land being distributed across the country.”

The program is also supported by the Ministry of Natural Resources.