Central Housing and Planning Authority

92 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 9, ISSUE 12 CENTRAL HOUS ING AND PLANNING AUTHOR I TY for low-income earners of society.” “We also stand out from our competitors because we have an effective team, always move towards building resilience and sustainable homes, provide great customer service, and cater to low-income citizens.” “We are also a government entity with a low- profit mandate, so we have the opportunity to facilitate construction activities through public- private partnerships, which is a useful risk management strategy our competitors lack.” Another competitive advantage the authority has is the types of partners and stakeholders it gets to work with as a government agency. They include the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Renewal, the Development Control Authority (DCA), the Department of Survey and Mapping, the Land Registry, and the State Insurance Company Ltd. It also collaborates with local companies and organizations like financial institutions, building material vendors, contractors, heavy-duty equipment companies, and legal service providers. Despite the benefits of being a government agency, CHAPA’s history has not been devoid of challenges. For instance, as Richards explains, it had to undergo a restructuring in 2019 to make it more efficient and sustainable as a business. “In 2019, CHAPA took the time to restructure and correct many practices that were harmful to its overall survivability and effectiveness,” he says. “A functional organizational structure was put in place to include new management positions, revised policies and procedures to effectively guide departments critical to the organization’s success to fulfill its core mandate of providing affordable housing to low- and middle-income earners.” “CHAPA for decades has been focusing more on creating and selling land parcels in subdivisions for residential development rather than creating Houses at our North Sound Housing Dev.