BRIDGETOWN, Barbados — Barbados used its turn as host of the region’s main gathering of housing ministers in early December 2025 to set out a plan to bring abandoned buildings and idle state land back into use as housing.
The 34th General Assembly of MINURVI, the forum of Latin American and Caribbean ministers responsible for housing and urban development, ran from 3 to 5 December at the Hilton Barbados Resort. Its theme was financing the urban transition through housing, climate adaptation and resilience, and partners included the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), UN-Habitat, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
Opening the meeting, Acting Prime Minister Dr William Duguid said the government was examining how state-owned land could be used to draw private investment into regeneration and new homes. He argued that existing buildings were designed for weather conditions that no longer apply, telling delegates that “the infrastructure of today was built for a climate that no longer exists.” The Ministry of Housing, Lands and Maintenance is working with the IDB on how to bring vacant lots back into productive use, CBC Barbados reported.
Housing Minister Chris Gibbs, who serves as MINURVI president, said the member countries had agreed to cooperate more closely on climate-related housing issues, with a working group due to report back at the next assembly in Uruguay. Vice-presidents were elected from Panama and The Bahamas. The damage Hurricane Melissa had caused in Jamaica and Cuba five weeks earlier was repeatedly cited as a reason for urgency.
The meeting followed a 25 November announcement by the OECS Commission, the IDB and the Caribbean Development Bank of a regional programme to retrofit existing homes for resilience, with the CDB as executing agency. No new money was committed at the Bridgetown meeting itself.
What it means
Analysis: If state land is released for regeneration partnerships, developers could gain access to well-located urban sites in and around Bridgetown that are normally hard to assemble. For homeowners across the region, the emphasis on retrofitting existing houses points towards new retrofit finance and, over time, tougher building standards.
Editor’s note: This article was added to the Jamaica Homes News archive on 30 September 2026. It reports events from December 2025 and is dated to when they were reported.
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