Santo Domingo.- In the next 45 days the Government will call for tenders to design and build "Ciudad Juan Bosch," including the construction of 35,000 houses by the private sector over the next seven years, president Danilo Medina announced Wednesday in a speech before Congress.

The Presidential Commission for the Mortgage Market Development Fund will implement the project on around 3 million square meters, Medina said, noting that the private sector will contribute its own funding, bank financing and bond issues that could be bought by pension funds, and head their construction.

Land titling

The President said development isn’t possible where lands have no titles and promised to provide deeds for around 7,000 farms and urban and rural areas by the end of June, via the State Land Titling Commission.

He said however the government cannot achieve that goal on its own, and called on the Judicial Branch to join forces to bolster the Land Court’s jurisdiction and simplify titling processes.

Medina said the government will issue around 15,000 additional deeds by year’s end, “in other words, we’ll end the year with 20,000 new titles of property."

He said the possession of titles will allow thousands of families to end years of uncertainty, with access to credit and will be encouraged to raise crops on land which belongs to them, adding that the issuing of deeds to more than 150,000 properties, both farmlands and for housing, is the goal for the next four years.