Retiree designs houses that cost under J$1 million each

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July 03, 2019

Photo

Concrete panels and steel columns make up the foundation of one of the homes Carrara wants to build to provide cheap housing.

Vincent Carrara shows off his various designs for the homes.

Carrara is confident that the homes can withstand any weather.

Seventy-six-year-old Vincent Carrara, from Arnold Road in Kingston, wants to provide cheaper houses for Jamaicans.

Since his retirement from over 45 years of electro painting and construction, Carrara has been working on different experiments using concrete.

So far, he's created concrete water tanks, concrete tiles, and concrete germination jars. But his proudest accomplishment is movable concrete panels.

Carrara told THE STAR that he got the approval from the Bureau of Standards to install these concrete panels on houses specially designed to accommodate them.

Such homes would need metal caging to which the panels would be screwed on to.

When completed, he said these houses could be sold for $950,000.

"I'm making the house so you can carry it, (the panels) and fit it up. If you just build the house like regular, you wouldn't do it as quick or as cheap. This cost will be half the cost of a normal building; we're talking about $4,000 for a square foot for a building like this. We're talking up to $9,000 for a square foot for a regular building," he said. "What we are doing here, is that we are building a house in a factory. You cannot get a house cheap unless you build it in a factory."

Safe to live in

Carrara also asserted that these houses are safe to live in.

"You don't have to worry about fires or hurricanes. I don't use any wood in this, just concrete," he said.

And although he hopes the Government would use his model to create houses for the indigent, if it doesn't, he's prepared to take his panels to a parish in which he believes they would be suited.

"What I want to use it for now is some cottages for tourists. I'm trying to acquire some land in Portland for that. I also want to do a social enterprise, train a lot of people on how to make them. I'm going to set up a little factory," he said

He added that he wants to build at least 10 of these houses in Portland because of his love for the parish. But it's not just about the money for him.

"Money couldn't get me to do this; change of occupation is relaxation," he said