Progress Made for Affordable Housing: MoU Signed between the Government and SMHDF

Great Bay - The Government of Sint Maarten moved one step closer to the realization of additional affordable housing by signing an agreement with the Sint Maarten Housing Development Foundation on Friday, March 17, 2023. This agreement makes it possible for SMHDF to receive land in Hope Estate that was earmarked by the Government for social housing and paves the way for accessing Trust Fund Support.

This Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was created as part of the housing project of the Government of Sint Maarten to demonstrate the commitment of the participants to work in close partnership towards financially healthy and sustainable social housing in Sint Maarten. This MoU was preceded by the existing performance agreement as signed on 23 July 1997, between the two parties.

According to Minister Egbert Doran, “ This agreement puts us closer to the realization of building more needed homes for the people of Sint Maarten. I look forward to sitting with the World Bank and the Steering Committee in the coming days to finalize the funding needed to start this project”

In August 2022, the Council of Ministers approved Sint Maarten’s Spatial Development Strategy 2030 which considers that adequate and affordable housing for the citizens of Sint Maarten is regarded as a cardinal requirement to sustain a good quality of life. The Steering Committee of the Sint Maarten Recovery and Resilience Trust Fund earmarked funding for this project which was subject to revision of the existing performance agreement and World Bank’s appraisal in December 2021 and as reconfirmed on March 7, 2022.

As part of the preparation for this project, the Government agreed to issue land in long lease at Hope Estate (meetbrief 095/2011) to SMHDF for the construction of social housing last November.