Venezuela enacts law to boost housing construction after earthquake

Venezuela's acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, has signed a new law designed to accelerate housing construction in the wake of a devastating earthquake on June 24. The tremor left approximately 17,900 people homeless and claimed over 6,500 lives, creating an urgent need for new shelter.

"This law will seek to promote, build, more housing. Remove any type of obstacle, limitation, difficulty, complexity, and allow us to guarantee greater availability of housing," Rodríguez stated as she signed the legislation. The law aims to streamline the process for building new homes and address the critical shortage faced by survivors of the disaster.

Government efforts include over 61,000 inspections of buildings to assess earthquake damage. Of these, 11,000 structures have been identified as being at high risk of collapse. Meanwhile, construction is underway on 3,000 new homes in Catia La Mar, a severely impacted area in La Guaira state. The Venezuelan Parliament, controlled by the ruling party, approved the "Law for the Promotion and Protection of Housing Construction" last Friday. This 40-article law outlines parameters for contracts, sales, responsibilities, and oversight by the Ministry of Housing and Habitat.

The legislation also mandates the creation of a trust fund by construction companies and requires them to detail housing characteristics and execution timelines in contracts. Penalties for non-compliance, such as delays in documentation or violations of preventive measures, range from fines equivalent to 300 to 54,000 times the highest-value currency unit, based on the daily exchange rate. The government previously estimated a need for 25,000 new homes and had pledged to deliver 4,000 by December, though current figures show 335 new homes built and 1,001 repaired to date.