The City of Chag

New opportunities for wanna-be Home-Owners

The bustling Chaguanas "city centre."

As early as 1999, Chaguanas was given the distinction of being Trinidad’s fastest growing town. Today, 15 years later, all of Central Trinidad, and even parts of South and East Trinidad - from Talparo to Rio Claro - look towards Chaguanas as their “city” even though local government authorities have not officially granted it long-overdue city status.

Two Christmases ago, a news article reported that there were more shoppers and vendors in Chaguanas than in Arima, and even though traders complained of slow sales, people in South Trinidad were leaving the South to shop in Central. Chaguanas business-owners now boast that theirs is the main shopping district in Trinidad, and they are not wrong.

Initially, Chaguanas grew mainly as a “dormitory” suburb as housing costs escalated, and working people in Port of Spain and the East-West Corridor sought cheaper land and houses.

But today, Chaguanas has become a pillar of growth in itself, as hundreds of business sprang up and expanded over the last 15 years to serve this rapidly growing community. The result: more businesses, more jobs, and non-stop growth.

The amount of available land is also a plus for the burgeoning city. The closure of Caroni (1975) Limited –a move criticized by many – is turning out to be a blessing, as thousands of acres have been freed up, providing land for housing, and food-crop farming in the outlying areas.

These large tracts of flat and gently rolling lands surrounding Chaguanas make for easy and rapid expansion of the city, unlike Port of Spain, hemmed in by mountains on the North and the sea on the south. Chaguanas is expected to continue growing, and could easily become the country’s largest city (both in area and population) within the next 10 years.

While land prices have escalated in the last seven or eight years, driven by ever-increasing demand for housing, rents and price tags on new and older properties are still within the reach of the average working person.

However, there are fears that real estate prices will continue to rise in Chaguanas and environs, as the Central city is within commuting distance to new business growth areas in North, Central, and South Trinidad.

This has prompted many a real estate agent to urge client to buy as soon as possible, a call that many have heeded, as many new houses and apartment buildings are going up despite the cooling of the construction boom that started a few years ago.

Some prospective home-owners are also seeing hope, as government has re-started several stalled housing development projects.

 New housing construction in the Borough of Chaguanas