Our crumbling housing stock

Covered in graffiti and weeds and patrolled by neighbourhood cats, Rosedale in St. George’s, is a poster-child for Bermuda’s persistent problem with derelict houses.

Estimates vary wildly but it is believed there could be anywhere between 700 and 2,000 vacant and decrepit homes across the island. They range from single-storey apartments that would take a few short months to renovate, to sprawling, crumbling estates in need of major restoration.

A 2007 Government project to revive them in a bid to provide low-cost housing appears to have stalled amid a complex web of legal disputes, family ownership squabbles and conflicting political priorities.

The Bermuda Sun understands the scheme is about to be revived. In a special report today we take a look at the island’s derelict properties and ask — could they provide the answer to Bermuda’s housing crisis?

Does the answer to our housing problems lie among the smashed roofs and graffiti of our derelict properties?

By James Whittaker

Hidden among weeds and discarded liquor bottles, scrawled with graffiti or buried under decades of trash, could the answer to Bermuda’s housing problem be on our doorstep?

While an increasing number of families struggle to find an affordable place to live, as many as 2,000 properties could be lying vacant and unused.

The exact number of ‘abandoned’ homes is unclear with many subject to legal disputes over ownership.

But Bermuda’s derelict or neglected properties cross the full spectrum of the real estate market from towering mansions to unused studio apartments.

In some cases owners have moved overseas, others have died. Some belong to ageing landlords who no longer have the will or the resources to maintain their properties.

We visited a dozen derelict buildings, including a stone cottage abandoned since a fire in 1985, a small family house empty for around four years and now covered in gang graffiti and a reputed former brothel now engulfed in weeds and twisted vines.

There are hundreds more like them across the island.

Transforming them into homes is not a simple task and the often protracted legal issues have thwarted well-meaning projects in the past. But observers believe a significant number could be claimed by Government to provide low-cost housing.

Phil Perinchief, who was heavily involved in a project to renovate or demolish such properties in 2007, said an initial hit list of 200 homes that could be ‘flipped’ had been identified at that time. The scheme involved legal negotiations with the owners to allow Government to take over the properties, rebuild them and put them on the market for rent.

He said the aim was twofold — to get rid of so-called ‘crack houses’ that had become magnets for squatters and other ‘undesirables and to add to the low-cost housing stock.

The project was successful in a handful of cases. But Mr. Perinchief, who left office after losing his seat in the December 2007 election, believes it was shuffled down the list of priorities.

“It is disheartening,” he told us. “This initiative has to be looked at again. It is not the complete solution but it is a reasonable approach to solving a lot of the low-income groups housing needs.

“Like any project, there are kinks but those kinks can be ironed out.”

Housing Minister Colonel David Burch was not able to comment yesterday. But the Bermuda Sun understands that the initiative was beset by internal disputes among private landlords. A new drive on derelict homes is believed to be planned for the coming months.

Nicola Feldman, volunteer project manager with Habitat for Humanity — the non-profit organization that builds and renovates homes for needy families, said new legislation would help ease the process.

She said: “Derelict properties have been recognized as a potential source for Habitat work since we were founded back in 2000.

“Unfortunately the fact that perhaps as many as 90 percent of these are tied up in multi-family inheritance disputes, means any move forward would require an amendment to the existing legislation in order to allow Government to force the sale of the properties,

making them available for either private NGOs or government to renovate and add to the housing stock.  While government has been talking this issue for some time, there has not been any progress to date.”

A spokesman for The National Trust, which assisted with the initial 2007 project, said it hoped the issue was still on Government’s agenda: “It has been a concern of the Bermuda National Trust for some time that many important historic buildings are neglected. The Government’s scheme was particularly commendable as it was to serve to address a number of matters important to Bermuda, notably housing, but at the same time to revive some of the island’s most beautiful and important buildings together with enhancing the Island’s attractiveness.”

She said the Trust had provided Government with a list of the owners of derelict buildings, which were under the stewardship of the organization.

The Trust has also recommended that Government focus on disused commercial properties as well.

“Tackling the issue of derelict properties is a truly sustainable practice,” the Trust spokeswoman said, “doing so simultaneously deals with a number of issues in Bermuda such as limited housing, regeneration of neighbourhoods and the restoration and renewal of important landmarks.”

Kim Swan, the leader of the Opposition and an MP for St. George’s, agreed that renovating derelict homes would be a creative response to Bermuda’s housing problem. But he said there were often complicated, sometimes sad, stories behind the decline of once-thriving buildings.

“Sometimes people move away, sometimes they get old and they find it hard to look after their properties like they used to. In some cases it’s a reflection of difficult times where people might be land rich and cash poor — they have the property but they no longer have the means to look after it.”

Architect Henry Ming, who helped us identify some of the properties profiled in this feature, believes those issues can be overcome.

“There is a shortage of homes in Bermuda and at the same time we have many derelict homes that are crumbling away.

 “It is time we got to grips with this situation and do something serious rather than just looking at and identifying these run down and derelict properties.

 “There is still an ample number of derelict properties across the island that could be renovated and nothing is being done with them.”

Additional reporting by Simon Jones.

Related column: We don't have a housing crisis - we have too many empty houses